Retelling Tales
by jumptheshark
Summary: You will have heard these stories before, though maybe not quite in this format. I'm grouping them under one umbrella, because they are all tales re-told. The chapters have various ratings - please see chapter index inside for ratings and summaries
1. Chapter 1 Index

**Re-Telling Tales**

_Chapter One_: Index

_Chapter Two_: What Happens After Dark (K+)

Forks is a quiet town, its citizenry peace-loving and law-abiding. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happens, and that's the way they like it. That is, until the rats come. Something has to be done - so the mayor sends for the ratkillers.

_Chapter Three_: A Minute Past Midnight (M)

There's a Christmas party at little Isabella's house, and Great-uncle Carlisle has brought her a splendid gift - it's a model castle, and there is even a toy prince. Late in the night though, Carlisle does something to the clock, and Isabella finds that she is no longer a child, and the prince is no longer a toy.

_Chapter Four_: The Lake Song (T)

My name is Beautiful and my father is the chief. A suitable match will have to be found for me amongst the wellborn youths of our society. But I espy a prince from another clan, and I make my own choice.

_Chapter Five_: Click and Send (T)

My mother has been embarrassing me pretty much since I was old enough to be aware of it, but her latest antic really takes the cake. She's set me up with her husband's brother! The only way out of my predicament is to manufacture a boyfriend who rates higher than Uncle on the prestige chart, like, say - a doctor. Can anybody find me a doctor boyfriend by this afternoon?

_Chapter Six_: Gossip Gurl (K+)

I'm not one to spread rumors, but you know those three Cullen girls? Seriously, you're not going to believe this, but I heard...

_Chapter Seven_: A Darkness of Red (K+)

It's difficult for me to get out on my own as my father ensures I am never unaccompanied, but one day I manage to elude my companions, and surely the Gods are smiling on me, because the one person I have ever wanted to be alone with suddenly comes past.

_Chapter Eight_: Love's Blue Flowers pt 1 (M)

I have two best friends - Angela and Tanya, and I have a huge crush on a boy - Edward. Normally best friends support you and give you helpful advice on guy-related matters, but mine are useless. Muddling through the quagmire is something I'm just going to have to do on my own.

_Chapter Nine_: Love's Blue Flowers pt 11

_Chapter Ten_: Love's Blue Flowers pt 111

_Chapter Eleven_: Witch They Called Me (K+)

When Isabelle was visited by an angel in the night, there was nobody she could turn to. If she spoke of what had happened, she would have been pronounced lunatic and imprisoned. The angel continued to visit, and he told her an army was on its way and she would have to defend her people. Isabelle didn't want to believe him, but one dreadful day, his dire predictions came true.

_Chapter Twelve_: Belle (K+)

A knight is found wandering in a region ravaged by some curse of nature, where the trees are bare of leaves, and the grass underfoot is parched and browned. He appears fevered, and delirious, and his tale is something that can scarce be believed.

_Chapter Thirteen_: Not Your Average Wolf (M)

Once upon a time a wolf was tripping merrily along in the forest when a pretty girl happened to come by and tempt him, by being luscious. What's a poor wolf to do?

_Chapter Fourteen_: These Shoes Are Made For Dancing (T)

Bella hasn't seen her Dad for three years, so when she goes to visit him for summer vacation, it's to be expected that things will be a little awkward. What she doesn't expect is to find a ready-made step-family. The other thing she doesn't expect is to meet a handsome prince!

_Chapter Fifteen_: What's In A Name? (K+)

What's in a name? Depends what that name is...

_Chapter Sixteen_: Buccaneers Part 1 (M)

It's all rum and rust and ropes, and your fears and dreams and hopes may or may not come true on the ocean blue...

_Chapter Seventeen_: Buccaneers Part 2

_Chapter Eighteen_: Buccaneers Part 3

_Chapter Nineteen_: Buccaneers Part 4

_Chapter Twenty_: Buccaneers Part 5

_Chapter Twenty-One_: Buccaneers Part 6


	2. Chapter 2  What Happens After Dark

_characters belong to SM. I'm not sure who the plot belongs to. you'll recognize parts of it, I'm sure_

**What Happens After Dark**

The mayor called a meeting one Saturday in the Town Hall and it was attended by the Clerk, and the Councillors, and the berghers, and various other notables.

Wearing his chain of office and his ermine-collared red velvet robe and looking ridiculous because the unfortunate man couldn't help it, he cleared his throat and addressed the attendees.

"All townsfolk," (which was somewhat erroneous, as many of the townsfolk were not there), "It is clear to us that we in the once happy hamlet of Forks have a problem."

"Hear hear," the people nearest the front said.

_"What did he say?" "He's got a problem? To do with ham?" "Why is his nose so purple?_" some other people said.

"Fellow citizens, you are all aware as I am that our beautiful streets and dwellings and fields and shops and buildings are faced by a grave threat."

"_What?" "Something about graves?" "Is there something wrong with the cemetary?_" Chinese whispers were confusing those to the rear of the room.

"I am speaking of the rats. The pestilence and scourge of the rodents. We all know how serious this problem has become. We are in danger of being over run. This very morning I found a rat in my oats! Mothers have found rats in their babies' cribs!"

"_Rats in coats?" "Babies' ribs_?"

"They have come from the sewers and the drains, they have come from the pastures and the woods. They have come in their hundreds and they saw that it was good, and they multiplied and now they are in their thousands. Everywhere we look we see rats. Low and dirty they scurry, carrying disease and stealing food. It is time for something to be done."

"Hear hear," the people nearest the front said. Or was it here here?

"It has come to my attention, fellow Forksians, that there are a group of people residing faraway on our great continent who eat rats for their sustenance, as you and I eat bread. It is my proposal to invite a small number of these people here to reside with us. I believe it will be an arrangement that will suit everybody. They will curb our rat population. Our rats are particularly plump and to the right sort of palate, I imagine they would be delicious. Perhaps the fashion might even catch on! Roast rat with all the trimmings! What say you, townsfolk?"

"_He's barmy" "Soft in the head" "Coast rats are all lemmings?" "If they were we wouldn't have a problem.._."

"Here, here!" they said, and thus it was decided. The invitation was issued, and a messenger on a fleet horse dispatched to Faraway On Our Great Continent.

And not long afterwards, They came. Seven they were in number, four men and three women. Not knowing what to expect, the townsfolk stood around nervously, all dressed in their very best, to await their guests. It was after dark, as apparently they were nocturnal.

Now you would think people who eat rats might be - well, perhaps scruffy? Grubby? Sewer-dwellers? Scabrous?

"I am very pleased to meet you. I am Carlisle Cullen and this is my family," said the first of them, and he was tall in the lamp light and golden, midnight's Apollo. All the women of the town swayed, sighing.

"Good evening. I am Esme," said Aphrodite at his side, moon-pale, mysterious and softly glowing, and all the men of the town cleared their throats and shifted awkwardly from one foot to another.

"We have prepared a banquet," the mayor said officiously, puffing up his little peacock chest to disguise, or maybe emphasize his nervousness. "We didn't know what your preferences might be, so we are serving a series of courses, please come this way, we have rat consomme, followed by rat pie, followed by rat-on-a-spit with sugarplum chutney, and then rat's liver pate on melba toast with a fine rat's milk stilton. And we have even brewed rat's bile ale."

Carlisle raised an elegant eyebrow. "Thank you indeed for all the trouble you have gone to, but my family and I will be quite unable to partake of your feast. We eat the buggers raw."

Beneath the collective gasp from the entire crowd one of the newcomers, the biggest one, muttered, "Couldn't we just try the ale?"

The whole town could be seen and heard heaving and it wasn't a sigh of relief, it was the contents of their stomachs. A fair amount of heaving had already taken place that day, during the preparation of the meal.

"Ah, rats, wonderful rats," Carlisle continued, with a gleam in his eye. "We pick them up by the tail, and pop them in our mouths, fur and all. Delectable."

The mayor's face went purple to match his nose, and he huffed a little, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels until he was able to speak.

"Allow me to show you to your accommodation. It is humble, as we are humble folk, but we have given you the best we have to offer and we do hope you will be comfortable," he said, leading the way down the main street to what was indeed a humble but comfortable little house in the centre of the town. As the impossibly magnificent family followed him, a quiet revolution took place amongst the residents of Forks. Everyone who wasn't dead from the neck down stared in awe and dread, and more than just a little desire. The mayor's niece, Isabella, certainly wasn't dead by any measure - at seventeen she was beginning to come to life. She watched the last of the visitors, a tall red-haired boy, and caught his eyes as he passed. He stared at her, his head turning nearly a full one hundred and eighty degrees to watch her, like an owl. Owls eat rats.

The next evening, Isabella nervously knocked on the door of the little house the visiting dignitaries had been allocated. She thought she saw the red-haired boy at the window, and he was the one who answered the door.

"I've brought you a welcome gift," she said shyly, handing over a basket.

"Thank you," he smiled, and he had the most perfect teeth imaginable.

"They're only mice," she said, and indeed they were, once he had lifted the lid of the basket and carried out an inventory. Seven little mice. Isabella's cat, and the neighbors' cats would go hungry that night. He put them to one side, and she saw he was far too polite to eat in front of her.

"My name is Isabella. I hope you will enjoy your stay here," she said, demurely.

"My name is Edward, and I'm sure I shall," he answered. "Your mice look very nice and tasty."

"I hope they will be." This was one of the oddest conversations ever to have taken place in Forks, even though it's true the mayor said plenty of odd things.

"Will you be attending school?" Isabella asked.

"I'm afraid not. We have to rest during the day. We are simply too lethargic to do anything else. At night we are active, and that's when we hunt," he answered. "However, I won't need to hunt tonight, thanks to your generous gift. Would you perhaps be able to show me something of your town?"

Isabella hesitated, but his eyes were so beautiful, and his hair shone as he ruffled it with a hand, his expression suggesting that awaiting her answer was making him anxious.

"Very well, but I'll have be to home at a reasonable hour," she nodded. He gave her the smile again, and held his hand out to her.

They walked the streets of the town, skipping from pool to pool of light dropped by the gas lamps, and slipping through shadows.

"What is a reasonable hour?" he asked and she had to shrug, because no hour at all could be called reasonable if that hour required that she be parted from him.

He ensured that she was home by ten-thirty, though, and asked to see her again.

Every night Isabella met Edward at eight o'clock and they walked. Every night he took her home at ten-thirty. She couldn't sleep after she'd seen him, and thought she might as well become nocturnal herself. All day she was exhausted, and it seemed she'd caught his lethargy.

But Bella was not the only one. Forks had always been a very quiet town once twilight fell. Everyone would be indoors and engaged in some quiet occupation such as string portraits, or macrame. Now that the strangers were around, the town's youth had discovered night time. Teenagers were leaving their houses and congregating in the square, sometimes even with guitars and harmonicas, so they could sing and dance. It was starting to be a little scandalous. The engaging and alluring Carlisle Cullen had produced some sort of flute one night, and would play engaging and alluring music on it as the older townsfolk lay in their beds, gritting their teeth with their fingers in their ears.

The mayor called a meeting one Saturday in the Town Hall and it was attended by the Clerk, and the Councillors, and the berghers, and various other notables.

Wearing his chain of office and his ermine-collared red velvet robe and looking ridiculous because the unfortunate man couldn't help it, he cleared his throat and addressed the attendees.

"All townsfolk," (which was somewhat erroneous, as many of the townsfolk were not there), "It is clear to us that we in the once happy hamlet of Forks have a problem."

"What now?" the people nearest the front said.

_"What did he say?" "He's got a problem?" "Well, it can't be the rats. They've all gone."_

"Our youth are starting to keep unsociable hours and to listen to wild music after dark, and who knows where this sort of behavior will lead? I fear they have been negatively influenced by our newcomers, who are, let's face it, night-walkers. It is most regrettable," he announced.

_"Pipe stalkers?" "Toast forgettable?"_

"I propose that we introduce a curfew of eight o'clock, and any of our young people found outside after that time will be arrested. I also propose a ban on any music other than hymns in the church on Sunday morning," the pompous little killjoy carried on. Some muttering began, but a cool voice suddenly cut clearly across everyone.

"Excuse me," it said, and at the back of the hall stood Carlisle Cullen and his entire family.

"I th-thought you'd be asleep," said the mayor, which was precisely why he'd called the meeting for ten in the morning.

It's true the Cullens appeared bleary-eyed and tired, but they strode forward.

"Are you seriously proposing to disallow your young people from going out in the evenings, and to ban music?" Carlisle asked, and people shuffled with their heads down, unwilling to catch anyone's eye.

"Yes, I am. If we do not curb this sort of undesirable carry-on there will be trouble. I have heard the young people are not only listening to music, they have started to dance, and dancing is the devil's business. It leads to fornication," the mayor said authoritatively.

"It does no such thing, it is not the devil's business, music elevates our souls and takes us to the realms of the angels. Through music we are closer to God. The vibrations of sound waves harmonize with the vibrations of all of earth and of life itself. Dancing is the physical expression of our bodies' joy in the divinity of music. To deny music is like denying breath. And it is illegal in this country to forbid association. According to the law of the land the young people of this town may gather to get acquainted and to speak and to enjoy themselves. Man is a social animal. To maintain psychological health we need the company of others. The youngsters are busy at school or college during the day, and their time is not their own. They need unstructured time with one another to cultivate friendships. It is character forming, and will strengthen the community."

Well, Carlisle Cullen was certainly eloquent and persuasive. The mayor was going to have apoplexy.

"You can't tell me how to run my town," he gasped.

"I can state my opinion. Freedom of expression is one of the basic tenets of democracy."

"Here in Forks we do not live in a democracy. We live in a well-ordered society."

The people in the hall were greatly enjoying this exchange. They were wondering what the outcome would be. A little portly personage trying to argue a point with a tall, cool, confident, er, rat-eater was well outside the norm for half past ten on Saturday morning in smalltown, Washington.

"I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave, sir. Your ideas are inflammatory, and I will not have our quiet little town upset by a bunch of radicals and extremists. We're very thankful for your help with subduing the rodent population, but the rats are now all but gone. Perhaps it is time you sought a new location to accommodate your dietary necessities. I imagine there will smorgasbords aplenty to the south. Or the north," the mayor stated firmly, and Carlisle shrugged.

"Very well, my family and I shall leave this very night. And sir, I promise you we will take the music with us," he said very calmly, and it seemed the temperature dropped in a flash by tens of degrees. How can a voice be chilling? Such a musical, dulcet, charming voice? It was chillingly chilling.

Meanwhile, Isabella had woken late because these days her sleep pattern had shifted. She stumbled downstairs to find a note on the table.

_'Secret meeting!_

_Don't let the young people find out!_

_Above all, don't tell the Cullens!_

_Town Hall, Saturday, ten o'clock! AM!'_

the note said. She thought it sounded important and didn't like the idea that there was any sneaking around, or conspiring going on. She ran to the Town Hall and arrived just as the Cullens were leaving. Edward was on the top step looking furious, though his expression changed when he saw her, and he held his arms out.

Isabella went to run up the steps to him when she tripped over her own feet and crashed heavily. There was an audible snap and the blood left her face painting her as wan as all the Cullens, and a second later a fair bit of it began to pour freely from a gaping wound in her shin, where white of bone could be clearly seen.

Edward gasped and knelt at her side as Carlisle scanned the people who had gathered around. "I am a doctor, I can treat her, but tell me straight away, where can I take her? Do you have an apothecary?"

Edward lifted her easily, and someone showed them the way to the dispensary where Carlisle knew exactly what he wanted, he cleaned the great gash in her leg and administered pain relief and set the break with a splint and a bandage. Isabella's brown eyes remained fixed on Edward and he held her hand throughout. Noticing, Carlisle's mouth set in a grim frown, and he said, "I am sorry to have to tell you this Isabella dear, as I understand you and Edward have grown close, but our family are leaving town this evening."

"No!" she gasped, and Edward actually growled.

When Carlisle had done all he could for her Edward lifted her again and carried her home. The medicaments had taken effect by then, and Bella's head was lolling against his shoulder. She asked him with her eyes not to leave her, because she would never have dared say the words aloud. He pressed the lightest of kisses on her forehead and whispered, "I will see you tonight. Sleep now."

There wasn't any choice about the sleeping, because of the medicines. Bella was asleep before he laid her on the bed.

She awoke that night to the sound of a flute outside, and laughter and chattering. Her leg was very painful, but she managed to stagger up and hobble to the window, wondering what was going on. Even as she got there a shape appeared in the pane, and she saw that it was Edward and he must have climbed the tree outside. The window was open and he sat half in and half out, regarding her.

"Isabella, look what is happening," he whispered, drawing her close. He slipped an arm around her waist to steady her as she looked out of the window.

The street below was a riot of activity. Carlisle and the other splendid Cullens appeared to be leading a procession. Bella recognized all the faces - everyone from Forks under the age of twenty must have been there. Carlisle was playing his flute and dancing along the street and like a parade, all the younger people of the Forks community were dancing along behind him. They were singing, eyes shining, following the after dark family. As Isabella watched they passed from sight, though she could still hear them as they wended their way towards the edge of town. Presumably the older folk of Forks lay abed gritting their teeth with their fingers in their ears, thinking this would be the last night they had to endure the noise. Little did they know the gravity of their situation. Carlisle had promised to take the music with him and the mayor had thought he could rest on his laurels. However the music had found a secure place in the hearts and minds of Forks' young people, and unbeknownst to the mayor, all of the town's vitality and passion and hope was leaving along with the flute.

"Isabella, I have to go, too. Has anyone told you what happened this morning? My family and I are no longer welcome here," Edward told her and she turned to him sorrowfully.

"Would you like to join us?" he asked.

"I cannot dance," Isabella said, gesturing to her broken leg. "I can't even walk."

"I have strength enough to dance for two," he said. "You're not heavy, I have carried you already today, and I would bear your weight happily, wherever you wish to go. I would very much like it if you wanted to accompany me and my family. You will be one of us."

"Are all the young folk leaving?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, apparently. This place is oppressive. I realize it has been your home, but people should not be forbidden the joy of music and movement, and of gathering with their friends when and where they choose, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying what the night has to offer."

"Will they follow wherever you go?"

"Probably they just need to find themselves some place more progressive than here. A town with music of its own - and then Carlisle's merry tune will not lure them."

"If I come with you will I have to eat rats?"

Those beautiful eyes, the beautiful eyelashes, the brows and cheeks and lips all lit with a gentle smile were focussed deeply on her face. "I am sure we can find an arrangement that will suit you. Rats? No. Fruit, vegetables, bread, whatever you like. I will find it for you."

"And will I stay with you?"

"Yes, for as long as you want to."

Isabella pictured the mayor. She wouldn't miss him. She looked at Edward. If she was to let him leave without her, she would miss him unbearably.

"Take me," she said simply, and he slung his other leg in the window and picked her up, carrying her down the stairs and out the front door where the notes promising freedom called her just as they called all the others.

The next morning, there was no-one under twenty left in Forks.

The mayor called a meeting in the Town Hall and it was attended by the Clerk, and the Councillors, and the berghers, and various other notables.

Wearing his chain of office and his ermine-collared red velvet robe and looking ridiculous because the unfortunate man couldn't help it, he cleared his throat and addressed the attendees.

"All townsfolk," (which was somewhat erroneous, as many of the townsfolk were not there) "It is clear to us that we in the once happy hamlet of Forks have a problem."

They looked at one another glumly, those who were left. The dull, the boring and the unimaginative. They certainly did have a problem. They _were_ the problem.

.

.

.


	3. Chapter 3 A Minute Past Midnight

Characters created and owned by Stephenie Meyer

**A Minute Past Midnight**

The little girl had her new dress on and it was her best dress and she had never felt so pretty, so much like a _princess_ and she was going to be at a party, a _real_ party, not just a children's one. Her dress was red velvet with a fitted bodice and a gathered skirt and a gorgeous sash around the waist, tied in a huge bow at the back. She had white stockings on and buckle-up black shoes. Her mother had brushed her long dark hair until her scalp tingled, and wound loops of it around a curling wand, letting it fall in fat loose ringlets back down over her shoulders.

"What time's Jacob coming?" the little girl asked, excited at the prospect of seeing her cousin.

"He'll be here, don't worry Bella, darling," her mother smiled indulgently.

"What time's Santa coming?" little Bella asked, cheeks aglow and eyes alight.

"I'm not sure, my sweet," her mother answered. "But it may be after you've gone to bed. Santa can be shy, you know. Sometimes he might be in a shop where you can sit on his knee for a photo, but when he's making his deliveries he doesn't like to be seen."

"But the reindeer are coming, aren't they? And the sleigh?" the girl asked. She skipped in sheer delight, humming to herself, doing a dainty circuit of the room, pointing her toes as she had seen ballet dancers do. Normally a solemn child, today was different. There was to be a Christmas party in her very own house this very night with all her family and their closest friends.

When the doorbell rang she threw an imploring glance over her shoulder at her mother, who nodded.

At the age of six, Bella was just able to open the heavy door.

A little boy stood there, proud and scrubbed, in a suit with a white shirt and a bow tie, his shiny black hair parted on one side and combed down flat.

"Jacob!" Bella squealed, standing aside to admit him. Behind him came a man in a wheelchair.

"A kiss for your uncle?" he asked, and Bella threw her arms around his neck, lips pressed fervently to his cheek.

"Uncle Billy, Uncle Billy, merry Christmas!" she chanted.

"Why don't you kids run along and play and your father and I will make sure everything's ready?" he suggested, and Bella happily took Jacob by the hand and made for the stairs to take him up to her room.

"Renee, that girl of yours is more beautiful by the day. Takes after her mother," Billy said as Bella's mother accompanied him to the living room.

Half an hour later the adults called the children downstairs and Bella and Jacob, faces shining and eyes bright scrambled into the living room where the adult guests were assembled drinking brandy and punch and mulled wine. The two had been speculating in Bella's room about what the presents were to be, but neither had had any idea of the splendor that awaited them. Under the huge Christmas tree, baubled and tinsled and starred and angel-topped in the living room was a wondrous castle, probably over three feet square, with little soldiers on the battlements and knights on destriers jousting in the courtyard; pages leading palfreys amongst cloisters and youths and maidens on the parapets.

"Father, this is _perfect_ and beautiful!" Bella cried in rapture, and her father smiled indulgently.

"Don't thank me, darling, this was a present from your godfather Carlisle."

The children turned to Carlisle and each shook his hand to thank him, Bella sinking into her prettiest curtsey, and Jacob bowing formally from the waist as he had been shown how to do.

"I hope you enjoy the castle my dears," godfather Carlisle smiled, evidently pleased. "Isabella, have you noticed the prince? He is especially for you."

Bella picked up the little figure of a sparkling young man in a charcoal shirt and grey trousers, with tousled dark hair that was its own crown and a stern, beautiful face - obviously a hero with a poet's soul.

"Why does he look unhappy?" she asked, turning deep and concerned eyes to her godfather.

"He is the lost prince. He lives and dies for love," Carlisle answered. "And has yet to find his one true match."

"He is not lost. He is with _me_," Bella said firmly, hugging him to her chest.

"Ah," godfather Carlisle remarked approvingly, a light in his eyes.

"Love?" Jacob shouted. He grabbed the figurine. "Love is dumb! He should live and die for monsters and dragons!"

Jacob began to make the prince joust amongst the armored knights despite Bella pleading with him not to, and in no time at all the prince was injured.

"Oh, Godfather," she pleaded, "Look - his arm is nearly broken right off - it's hanging! He must be in pain. Can you fix him for me? What is his name?"

Carlisle took the little doll. "Give me your hair ribbon as a bandage for his arm. I believe he will heal, dearest, if you will care for him truly. His name is Edward."

Bella crooned as Carlisle bound the doll with her scarlet ribbon, and she held and cradled Edward and mostly ignored Jacob for the rest of the night.

"My prince, my soldier, my poet," she sang. "Beautiful and brave, brave and beautiful you are," and the night grew late and it was time for guests to leave, and for children to go to sleep. Billy took Jacob home and Isabella's mother took the little girl up to her room to change into her pretty pink nightgown and make ready for bed. Tomorrow would be Christmas, and tonight, little Edward would lie on her pillow.

It was a long night, that night, between the eve and the day of Christmas itself. Isabella woke in the dark, finding herself unable to settle, and crept downstairs thinking she would watch the twinkling lights of the tree to soothe herself, get a glass of water, and sit awhile until she became sleepy. She took little Edward to accompany her.

To her surprise she wasn't alone downstairs. Godfather Carlisle was still at her house, though the other guests were long departed. Strangely though, he was sitting atop the Christmas tree, singing a little song. It wasn't a song she knew, but it appeared to be counting down the minutes until midnight. His arm had become unnaturally long and he had reached out all the way to the grandfather clock. He was turning the hands and the clock was chiming softly, incessantly, swift tones faster than her heartbeat, merging into one another, becoming a soft throb on and on. He didn't seem to even see her, intent on his weird, chanting tune.

As the clock struck midnight more than four thousand times, and the words of Carlisle's song became unintelligible, a series of strange things happened. Bella didn't know whether she had grown, or the house had shrunk. She suddenly loomed larger in proportion to the walls and the furniture and the Christmas tree. Carlisle disappeared, and she turned to clasp the Edward doll, only to find their relative sizes had changed. He was no longer a tiny little thing - he had grown to human size, man size, huge. And she had grown too. She couldn't possibly be six years old now, she must be three times that. She had never seen her reflection in the mirror over the couch unless she was actually standing _on_ the couch because she wasn't tall enough. Tonight, the night before Christmas, the night of the castle and the prince and Jacob and godfather Carlisle, she saw herself in the mirror. What she saw amazed her.

She was taller than she'd been the night before - her waving hair still hung halfway down her back, but her waist was so much farther from the crown of her head now that her hair was longer than she'd ever though possible. She was in her little girl's night dress, but last night it had reached below her knees - now it floated high on her thighs, filmy and flimsy in fairyfloss pink - aureole pink. She had breasts, pushing the front of the fabric out, and tipped with a deeper, more cerise, rosy hue than her six year old nipples had been tinted. Bella stared.

And at her side, the Edward doll stood up and smiled at her.

"My arm feels quite recovered now," he said, but made no move to give her ribbon back. It was still bound about his wrist, resplendent, a transverse sash of bright blood binding his radius and ulna.

A sudden bang on the door interrupted their staring bemusedly at one another and he frowned.

The door was pounded on again, and it mustn't have been locked after the last guest because it burst open, admitting three men. They looked rough and aggressive, lurching drunkenly.

"We heard there was a party on, but there's not much happening here," one sneered, looking around him disparagingly.

"We can make our own fun," another said, blatantly staring Bella up and down.

"Put some music on, cupcake. Something sexy. _You'll_ be my party," the third said, advancing on Bella.

Edward stepped in front of her. "Lock yourself in the bathroom and call the police," he urged over his shoulder.

"You're not welcome here, boys. The party was over hours ago. Why don't you just go home?" he said in an even voice, addressing the unwelcome arrivals.

The foremost man, a pony-tailed blond, turned the corners of his mouth up in an insolent grin. "A knight in shining armor," he jeered. "Who said the age of chivalry was dead? Now _this_ is my idea of a merry Christmas. I get to have a fight and then a fuck. Thank you, Santa."

"James, let's go. There's no action here. Leave her alone - who cares?" one of the hoodlums said, heading back towards the door, but James shook his head.

"There's only this one fucking loser here, standing in between me and my Christmas present. We can take him," James responded.

Bella grabbed the phone from the table behind her and made to dash out into the hall through the living room door only to find it slam in front of her. James had taken a swing at Edward who was now fully occupied trying to fight him off and one of the others had gotten past him and stood obstructing her escape.

"I'll take that phone, darling," he said, hand out.

The other of the men was saying urgently, "Guys, let's get out of here. This is going too far. We've already broken about seventeen laws, let's just go."

"You know your problem? You're a fucking pussy," James grunted as Edward's fist collided with his jaw.

Bella was terrified. She'd been grabbed and was refusing to relinquish the phone, struggling and biting. The man yowled as her teeth sank into his arm and he let her go long enough for her to push past, running on panicked feet down to the bathroom, whirling into it and pushing the door shut behind her. Her trembling fingers found the emergency number and she panted her address to the operator, giving a brief description of the situation.

"Stay where you are, we'll have our boys there in no time," the voice from the call centre advised.

"But there's three of them. Edward's outnumbered and he's taking a beating," she cried.

"Honey, if you have no self-defense or combat training you're not going to be any help," she was told.

She couldn't just stay there, safe in a gleaming tiled fortress while Edward was being hit only yards away. Bella crept back down the hall and saw that her steel-capped doc martens were just inside the front door. She grabbed one up and returned to the living room.

One of the men had fled, the pussy, not wanting to get into any more serious trouble than he would already be in for trespass. One was doubled over, clutching his testicles, so Edward must have gotten in a well-aimed kick. The third, James with his back to her, was raining blows on Edward who was managing to block some while getting in a couple of his own. But it looked as though was James was used to this sort of thing, just as it looked as though Edward was not. When Edward opened his mouth to say something to her, probably to yell at her to retreat, Bella shook her head grimly and raised the boot with both hands. She brought it down as hard as she could square on James's head, the hard metal of its toe making a loud, dull thud against his skull.

He grunted and staggered, hands to his head, and Edward took advantage of his disorientation and got him face down on the floor, sitting astride him holding his hands behind his back.

"God, Bella, you shouldn't have come back in here, but I'm glad you did," he breathed and they heard footsteps rushing outside as the police arrived.

The next while passed in a blur, with the intruders being handcuffed and led away, and Bella and Edward being questioned for their version of events.

When the police had finally left, and she looked at the clock, it was only a minute after midnight. With the exertion and adrenalin of what had just transpired she felt edgy, nervy, excited and was unable to even sit down, instead pacing the room and fidgeting.

"Are you okay, Bella?" Edward asked, noting her agitation. His hair stood on end and gravity seemed unable to persuade it back down. She smiled.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just - I don't know - I feel like I'm racing. I need to do something, I don't want to just stay around here. Could we go out somewhere?" she said.

Edward shrugged. "Sure. I certainly don't feel like going home, and I don't feel like leaving you, either. My sister's at a dance party tonight and she left a couple of tickets for me. We could go there, if you like."

"Dancing?" Bella laughed. "You'd get the dubious honor of attending with the world's worst dancer. I'll be all over your feet."

Smiling, Edward said, "I'd better borrow your steel-caps then."

"I don't think so, Sasquatch, they're not going to fit you" she grinned back, looking at his feet.

Within minutes she was ready, having changed into her favorite dress. Red velvet, darker than a sigh, with a low fitted bodice and flaring from the hips to swirl around her upper thighs. She didn't remember it having been so short before, or her legs having been so long, but there it all was. Her hair was a jungled tangle, some hanging in black coffee ringlets rounder than her arm and some diving straight through them in chestnut and burgundy lines striving for her waist. She left it as it was, figuring if it got in the way she'd ask Edward for her ribbon back. He didn't say anything when he saw her, but he took her arm and they went outside.

A cab let them off at the theatre where the party was being held. Edward's sister was dressed as a fairy, wearing a tutu and with gossamer wings secured to her shoulders by glittering silver straps across her breasts. She was tiny and exquisite.

"Well, well, Bella," she whispered with a kiss to Bella's cheek. "My dear brother is normally far too Edward to ever come to something like this. You must be quite special! Thank you for bringing him."

"What do you mean?" Bella asked. "What's 'far too Edward'?"

"Oh, you know, po-faced and serious. Restrained. Worrying about his immortal soul," his sister laughed. Her voice was breathy and magical. "Have a candy cane," she offered, and Bella took the lolly. Edward had one, she noticed. He grinned wrily at her and they turned towards the stage where it seemed a concert was about to begin. Bands of dancers came out and performed steps of intricacy and intrigue in unbelievable costumes. The audience watched and danced themselves, caught in the sway of the music and the candy canes, which were perhaps enchanted. Bella was swept away entirely on a tide of mint and delight, watching everything, unself-conscious for once, uninhibited and twirling on the coltish legs she had only discovered tonight.

Edward's sister Alice even appeared on the stage, alone and pivoting in blue light that lit her like a butterfly, a dazzling ethereal sylph, tossed on soundwaves, so slight her feet barely touched the ground.

When Bella next looked at her watch it was a minute past midnight, though the night seemed to have lasted for days.

"Shall we go?" Edward murmured, not having left her side, and not having stopped watching her. She knew it.

When they arrived back at her house it was still one minute past midnight.

"Would you like a drink?" she murmured, the earthy intoxicating smell of pine in the air mingled with clove and orange from the pomanders she had made herself and hung from the tree, the soft Christmas lights strung from the picture rails glancing about the room turning things golden.

"Yes, I would like that," Edward answered, and she only realized then that they were holding hands because he let her go.

"Benedictine?" she asked, floating towards the liquor cabinet.

"Yes," he followed her.

She poured them both drinks and they moved back to the couch.

"I don't know anything about you," she said, over the rim of her glass.

"I was born in Chicago. I studied Portuguese at school and I've been in Brazil for a couple of years now, volunteering with Medicins san Frontieres in their aid program. I'm completely fluent, I'm pleased to say. I've come here to visit family and I'm going to complete my medical studies and specialize in exotic diseases. And you?"

"I just finished school," Bella replied. "I'm going to university next year to study child psychology."

Edward smiled as she refilled their glasses. "I am a Gemini, I like candy canes and liqueur and the color dark red, and I think I might like you," he said.

Bella blushed, not quite the color of her dress, but possibly the color of her nipples. She turned from him and her upper teeth clenched her soft lower lip, unknowingly drawing his attention there as she gazed elsewhere at the cards adorning the walls, at the baubles strung about, at anything that wasn't a steady, searching gaze.

She knew she would be alone in the house tonight. She couldn't quite remember where her father was, or what was going on, or indeed anything, but she knew she was on her own and she felt vulnerable, although James couldn't possibly come back. He was in a lock-up, downtown. Maybe she felt more vulnerable about who was here, right now.

"Would you stay tonight? I'll make you up a bed here on the couch," she said to Edward, and he nodded. What kind of crazy was she? More benedictine, the tiniest sip, but she wasn't getting drunk on the stuff, she was affected by something else. The green of Edward's eyes?

"Thank you for looking after me tonight," she began, to wrap up the evening in her fine confusion at a minute past midnight. "And thank you for taking me out."

"Thank _you_," he answered solemnly. "You were the one who stopped James from punching my lights out. And I wouldn't have gone to Alice's extravaganza without you, so thank you for that as well. She'll be eternally grateful."

"Can you help me with this?" Bella asked, standing up. Things were awkward now, difficult. She was a little tipsy, and he was a lot gorgeous. A prince, a soldier, a poet. The couch was one of those ones where the back folded down and made a double bed. Together they pulled it out from the wall and eased the back of it down, and she went and collected sheets and pillows and blankets from the closet in the hall.

"Head in the pines, or feet?" she asked him, standing uncertainly holding the pillows. They had already stretched the elastic sides of the fitted sheet around the edges of the couch, and draped the flat top sheet over it. The end of the couch was up against the tree, nestled in the ends of branches and the feathering needles.

"Which would you recommend?" he asked.

"Which would you prefer?" she countered, still standing.

"Bella," he said, and she threw the pillows down in the middle.

"One more drink? One for the road?" she asked.

"I'm not hitting the road. I'm not going anywhere," he answered and one of her long curls lay over her shoulder, skipping her collarbone and offering a lick and a promise to the neckline of her velvet dress before plunging off the cliff of her cleavage to an uncertain end, dangling like a slinky. He captured it in a long finger.

"Happy Christmas, beautiful girl," he murmured, her hair held to his lips and she took a step forward.

"Happy Christmas to you, too," she whispered, and she hadn't meant to kiss him, she didn't mean to, she wasn't going to, and it should have been impossible with him so tall and her so much smaller, but he must have bent his head and somehow her open mouth met his and she inhaled the taste of mint and sweet alcohol and something else - the taste of tongue, the wet and soft and slippery and smooth texture of sliding and exploring and she pulled back immediately because it was so raw and shocking and intimate and she didn't know anything about him. His eyes were closed and they stayed closed as she stared and she saw that he was waiting. His eyes opened then and she saw that he would wait. She saw what she needed to know. She saw that he was honest.

Movements unorchestrated, she pulled him down onto the couch, kissing him again. He returned the kiss, sighing and surging into her mouth, meeting and discovering, giving and receiving, tasting and taking. His hands slipped to her waist and then her hips.

"Bella, say stop, say no, is this okay, can we do this?" he said, one hand slipping down to slide up her thigh under the dark red, curving to cup her ass, moving to pull her to him but hesitating.

"Yes, yes," she whispered back and they were next to one another and she twisted, lifted a silken leg to put it over both of his, eliciting a soft moan from him, from the hot lips under hers and his grip on her firmed and he took her other hip to pull her onto his lap, her knees on either side of him and from two minutes ago when they weren't even touching to now, when her groin was pressed into his erection, was a startling compression of the way time had elongated all this night. Bella wanted their kisses to take longer, so she slowed it down, her fingers in his already tangled hair, her thumbs to his cheeks, holding his face so that she could savor him at her leisure, his eyelashes fluttering, his lips soft and pliable and doing anything she wanted them to do, his chin and jaws hers, his tongue chasing and licking and curling. He gave up on sitting, lying back and pulling her with him, and things changed then, his arousal achingly evident and his hands moving to her breasts. He caressed the sides of them, all he could reach with her lying flat on top, pressed to his chest, and he murmured again, "Bella, is this okay?"

"Yes," she whispered, the instigator.

"Can we take our clothes off?" he whispered into the side of her throat, sucking lightly. Then, "I don't have a condom."

"I'll get one," she whispered and he didn't want to let her go, he held her as she tried to sit up and they stared into each other until he frowned, smiling lightly and his hands released her. Was he afraid she wouldn't come back? He needn't be. She had to go upstairs and wondered briefly about simply tugging him up there with her, but she thought she might need an escape later. When her father came home she and Edward should be sleeping separately.

She was back in a flash and he seemed relieved, he kissed her as if he craved her mouth, he pulled her down longways on the sofa and the scent of pine was in her very hair as their hands roved restlessly.

"You're beautiful, you're brave, you're mad, you're funny," he whispered against her neck and throat and beneath her ear and his tongue kept up a barrage on her skin and she turned into him with a barrage of her own, tasting the slight saltiness inside his collar. His shirt was torn, presumably from the encounter with James, and when she explored the rip with her mouth she found his nipple and he gasped, trying to arch away from her but she wouldn't let him. It was such a tiny little bud between her lips - she bit him lightly then moved her tongue around, rewarded with his breath caught and released haphazardly, knowing she was affecting him.

She eased him out of his buttons then, all of them, shirt and trousers, and pushed all the fabric aside exposing the hair on his chest that ran down his torso to his navel in a line and beyond. She licked where the hair went, her tongue delving in the increasing wiriness of it until he stopped her, hands at her shoulders.

"Come here, come here," he said and pulled her up to his mouth and he found the zip at her back and pulled the crushed velvet off her shoulders, she wasn't wearing a bra, she was all open to him, her breasts tipped with the color of her lips, awaiting his mouth to flush them deeper, and his mouth did, holding her above him, lapping at the milky whiteness and sucking at the pink.

"Bella, please. This is important," he gasped, addressing her breasts. "I want you, but we can wait. Tell me," and she could feel his heart against her own, his breath matching hers. If their breath and their hearts met, surely that boded well for intimate compatibility?

"I don't want to wait," she murmured. She had tiny little panties on, scraps really and his hands took her buttocks, squeezing and pulling her to him, holding her firm as his hips moved into her and his mouth forgot to kiss. She wriggled, spreading her legs, angling to get him where it felt best and his mouth slid off hers altogether with a wet moan. If they kept going any longer they would finish before they had started. She rolled off him and helped him with his pants in the soft light, he helped her pull the dress over her head and watched silently as she peeled off her underwear, swallowing deeply. She tugged his boxers over his thighs, knees, ankles and finally feet, grinning when he was free. She kissed his face and distracted him while he was rolling the condom on and he nuzzled into her cheek and mouth, kissing her back, and she reached down and ran her fingers over him as he warned her to be careful. Daringly, she slipped lower, beyond the shaft to his sac, and cupped and squeezed it lightly, feeling his teeth at her earlobe.

"We can stop," he said, poised above her, palms on either side of her upper chest and thighs between hers, penis nudging at her, eyes very dark.

"No. Don't you dare," she growled, and reached between them. He was so hard he didn't need guiding, didn't need helping, she showed him the spot then took her hand away and curved her pelvis upwards and the two of them negotiated the primal encounter, the closest contact, the deepest kiss. Bella could see the clock from where she lay, and with Edward's first penetration she saw the hand move, she saw time start again and move to two minutes past twelve, and then she stopped looking. She wished they didn't have the condom, having seen that he was uncircumsized - she wanted the whole thing, the whole experience, his foreskin stopped at her entrance and his head moving in and out as her muscles held his skin tight. She arched to take him more fully and felt him grow harder, felt the stiffening and groaned in wonder as his movements found hers, their natural rhythms in time with one another, their advances and retreats in synchronicity. It had never happened for her quite that way before.

"God, Christ, Jesus, Bella," he muttered, and she was deified, filled and oscillating in tinily ever increasing sweeps to and fro, until it was unbearable. He didn't even have a hand on her and that had never happened before either, she concaved and stilled and whimpered and he kept moving above her and in her, doing exactly what he had been doing to bring her to such a state and he wasn't far behind, grunting wordlessly, head thrown back in sharp relief beneath the lights of the tree as he pushed the hardest into her that he had so far, pulsating so strongly she could feel it.

He fell into her neck damply and her hands slid down over his back, not letting him pull away, clenching and pressing at the base of his spine to keep him even as his erection subsided and he smiled regretfully.

"Bella, the condom, I have to pull out of you before it gets to the point where it leaks," he muttered and she let his hips move then, though one hand moved swiftly up to the back of his head so that even as he left her below with that curious sensation of his cock slipping out and the full condom dragging slightly behind as he held the rim of it, her lips claimed his and her teeth were at his teeth, his tongue making up for her loss.

"Sweetheart, gorgeous, you should go to your own room. I'll go home in the morning, and I'll see you as soon as I can, and - Bella, does this mean something to you? Because it does to me," he said, hand in her hair, the ribbon on his wrist standing out in contrast.

"Yes, yes it does. Call me. I'll call you. We'll call each other. Can I have my ribbon back?" she asked.

"No," he said.

In the morning she crept downstairs to find the couch neatly made up, the sheets and blankets disappeared, and no trace of him. She hadn't even gotten his number, and hadn't given him hers. She didn't know how she could find him. She paled, devastated, and couldn't even speak, and her father couldn't get out of her what was wrong.

At eleven though, the doorbell rang.

"Charlie," Carlisle's voice said as she sat dazed on the couch, unable to move. "I've brought someone to meet you, and Bella too. He's been away a while in South America, but he's home now. My son, Edward."

Bella flew to the door, hopeful and eager, smiling at the tall boy with a ribbon around his wrist.

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This is based on the story by E T W Hoffman called the Nutcracker and The Mouse King.


	4. Chapter 4 The Lake Song

Characters property of SM.

This story is a present for sweetp-1

** The Lake Song**

My father, chief hereabouts, has no lack of certainty over who may or may not be allowed to become my suitor. I am of marriageable age and there are fine young men aplenty from respectable families, but my father has declared none of them eligible. He has said emphatically that I will not marry because he does not want me to ever leave him.

I lie at night on my virgin's narrow pallet in the women's quarters near the dwelling of my father, and I wonder what it would be to have a lover. I am all but forbidden the company of males - I may attend school in the village, and other than that I am expected to be in the house. I cook and clean and weave, and I spend time in reverie.

The girls in my village giggle and blush as they speak of the boys they know, and they lower their voices to whisper of kisses and touches, and I strain to hear while wanting to appear that I am not listening. I know nothing of the boy-girl games beyond what the whispers say, and I am curious. Seventeen is the age my mother was when she met my father. Seventeen is the age I am now.

We live on a lake shore and there are other clans around and sometimes there are gatherings with music and dancing and laughter so that the elders might tell stories of the old days, brag of their deeds and braveries, and offer cautionary tales to the children. The adolescents are permitted to mingle, although they are watched closely. It is in this way that youths and maidens meet, and alliances are formed which strengthen bonds between tribes.

It was at one such gathering that I became aware of the young prince. I didn't know who he was at first, but the gossip circulating amongst the girls soon informed me. His family lived on the great island in the lake, and apparently he had been sent away years previously for his initiation, and for training. His father was the head of the clan, and was a medicine man. He had three sons - the eldest a warrior, as was traditional, the second a balladeer, and holder of the family's oral history, and the third, in training to be a herbalist and healer. The boy was my age, tall, as the other men in his family were tall, and he caught my eye immediately.

His family were unusual in that his father had had three wives, one after the other, and all the sons had different mothers. They all looked different, and the youngest was the most different of all. His hair, with the sun glinting off it on a rare bright day, was like the copper that came from the mines in the south and even from a distance his eyes looked like greenstone.

He caught my stare and returned it. I wondered why, and looked around me, sure that I was mistaken, but when my eyes returned to him he was still staring. A minute later he was at my side.

"Who are you?" he asked in a deep and quiet voice.

I answered first with my parentage, as is the custom, and he raised his eyebrows.

"A chief's daughter?" he asked with a smile. Amongst our people status is important when establishing social connections. He and I were of equivalent rank.

My father arrived on the scene moments later, before the prince and I could speak more. Taking my elbow, my father ushered me away, and I took the chance to glance over my shoulder. The prince was watching my departure.

That night there was love in the air, many young people had paired and were talking quietly, eyes glowing in firelight, heads tilted in to one another, and who knows what hands were doing in the dark?

My father sat with other clan chiefs and talked politics, with one eye always on me. I saw the prince in the shadows with his brothers, but his brothers were finding maidens and becoming taken up in conversations. The prince remained alone, and every time I sought him, it was to find him also seeking me.

I was reluctant to leave without any further chance at talking to him, but the next day my father and I packed the tent he slept in alone, and the one I shared with other girls and matrons from my village and we set out on the walk back.

"So, the handsome one with the bright hair. I saw him look at you!" one of my friends began, but my father growled and silenced her.

That night, the music started.

Floating across the lake on wings of the scented breeze, strains of a song came to me in the women's hut. I had been half-asleep, half-deaming, half-imagining hands on me and a mouth on mine, as I lay too heated and restless in the dark. The hands were the prince's hands, the mouth his mouth. I felt desirous and ashamed. The song came through the dark, and I rose and went out, drawn by it. There was a male voice, alternating with a flute. No words were discernible, just a low melody, repeated over and over, with the same melody being played by the flute. It wasn't one of the traditional songs of our people - if it had been I would have known what was being said.

There is a huge rock jutting out into the lake where children dive from when they swim, and where we stand with our spears to punch the fat fish - I sat on the rock in silvered beams of moonlight and listened for an hour, until the unknown musician ceased his lonely refrain.

Night after night the song came and during the days no-one spoke of it. I am not given to superstition, any more than the usual amount, but I began to wonder if I was the only one who could hear it.

A moon or so later there was another gathering, and the prince was there again, surrounded by his family. His brothers sought the same girls I had seen them with the last time, so obviously their courtships were well underway, but the prince was again alone. Many girls seemed to want to capture his attention, but though he was polite, he gave none of them his time. He watched me.

My father had assigned some of the older women to keep an eye on me and they did, but all older women wish for romance for their young charges, and when the prince turned up to speak to me my chaperones discreetly melted away.

"I have been thinking of you," he said, and I hoped it wasn't improper of me to admit I had thought of him, too.

"I am of the age to find a bride and my father wishes for me to announce a betrothal," he said. "I have been given a list of acceptable girls from good families but I want none of them. You are the only girl I am interested in. Your father must be wanting to find a match for you - could I begin to hope that you might look upon me favorably?"

Girls of noble blood are brought up to be proud. I blushed fiercely but I held his gaze, those jade eyes of his, and saw my reflection in them, and told him yes.

"My father will never agree, though. He would have me kept a child forever," I said.

"Quick, now, the chief approaches!" one of my minders hissed, and the prince took me by the arm and pulled me behind a tree.

"Come to me. Cross the lake while he sleeps," he whispered, head low, breath tickling my ear. "We can be married by the morning."

"But I have never been to the island. I don't know where you live!" I whispered back, his strong arms encircling me, my hands reaching up to rest on his chest. His eldest brother may have been the one to be first in line to inherit the chiefdom, and to be the warrior, but the young prince had the build and strength to have taken the role, too. He was muscular and firm to my touch.

"Have you not heard me calling to you with my song? I will sing again tonight. Follow my voice," he said, and dropped a kiss to my lips, mouth warm. It was warm at first. It became hotter. I was shocked at how wet it was, then thrilled. I pressed my mouth back to his, all thought forgotten.

"I will wait for you," came his voice, a promise as he let me go and lost himself in the dark trees.

So the unknown singer, the mystery song that was a call had been him looking for me, trying to summon me to his side.

My father found me breathless and he frowned. I thought he suspected something.

The song came later, mixing with the crickets and the swish of the water, and I made my way down the well-worn path to the lake's edge. Normally, there would be several fishing boats strewn along the shore in readiness for the daily pre-dawn expeditions, but there were none. It was a moonless night, and I could barely see, but the sand stretched palely before me, with no black lizard shapes of the canoes to darken it.

I sat on the rock, eyes and ears straining to the lake, and realized that my father must have instructed the men to hide the boats this night. My brief tryst with the prince in the woods had not been secret. Either that, or my father had correctly interpreted the looks my suitor and I had been giving one another.

The next morning neither of us spoke of what had transpired in the night. My father was a taciturn man, unless he was in the company of other men. When he was with me, there was little conversation.

In the night my call came again, and again the moon hid herself, and again the boats were missing. I couldn't hope to look for them with no source of illumination, and the song grew sad and urgent. He wanted me, my lover, and I wanted to go to him.

The next gathering was not planned until after the winter. It was the very end of summer now, the last of the warmth was upon us, and soon the cold would draw in, nights longer and bleaker, air damp and exhalations misted. There was but one thing I could do.

Wood floats, and people don't. The next day, while gathering firewood, I set aside a large branch, leaving it under the sentinel rock. I waited until the velvet dark, and I waited until I heard sighs from my mat-mates in the women's hut, and I crept to where my father slept. Assured by his grunting and snoring, I went down to the rock.

Clothes drag in water. I hadn't swum since my bleeding had started, but as a child I was in the lake all the time, and I knew the weight of clothes. I slipped out of mine, took the stout, dead branch I had found, and eased into the black wet.

The song came, and I held on with my arms and kicked with my legs, and followed my lover's voice. I was very cold, but I was strong and there was a current to aid and abet me in my flight. I left behind my home, my face towards the island.

It was a very long swim, but it was also a very long night. I grew tired, but continued, and as if he knew that this night I was coming, the song went on longer. I could hear words now.

_Lonely she is_

_But she shall be no longer_

_I wait for my love_

_As she crosses the water_

_She holds my heart_

_And we'll soon be together_

_My bride she'll become_

_In my arms here forever_

Unerringly, I drew close.

The trees on the island loomed larger to my tired eyes, letting me know I was almost there. Hesitantly I dropped one foot beneath me, and there was sand. Exhausted now, and chilled almost to the point of paralysis, I managed to haul myself up onto the beach.

The music had stopped, I could barely see, and I was shivering uncontrollably. To my feet, though, the rocks I was staggering across started to feel warm, and I knew there must be thermal springs here, close. The distinctive smell guided me, as I pushed my way through trees and undergrowth, and in a little clearing my toes found water that soothed and heated them. I slid gratefully forward, finding when I sat down and curled up, the pool I had discovered was deep enough to cover me to my shoulders.

The warmth returned to me slowly, easing the chill in my limbs and putting a stop to the knocking together of my teeth. I could unclench my jaw, which I hadn't even realized had become locked. I had time to contemplate my next move, and I had time to regret I hadn't carried any clothing with me. I simply hadn't thought of it, but it would be worse than unseemly to go looking for my prince while naked. All that effort I had put into the swim, all the fatigue I was currently suffering were nothing to the realization that I had absolutely no idea what I could do now. My lack of forethought could be my undoing.

The pre-dawn chorus came and went and I still had no plan.

As the night lifted, I heard a sudden noise in the undergrowth, signifying an approach. I shrank back into overhanging ferns, hiding myself as thoroughly as I possibly could, and caught sight of two small legs.

"Who is that?" I growled, in a voice gravelly and, I hoped, fearsome. "What are you doing here in my domain?"

"I - I fetch water for my master. Who is there?" a trembling voice answered. It was no more than a child, I couldn't even tell its gender.

"I am the Spirit of the Spring. Who is your master, that he dares send you to disturb my slumber?" I snarled.

"My master is the young prince," the child answered, terrified.

"Tell him to fetch his water himself, before I eat you," I answered, and the feet turned and ran.

I waited, terrified that the prince would not come, and terrified that he would. Of course I wanted to see him, but would that I had been dressed in my finest! Even rags would have been better than to meet him in this way, utterly naked.

Shortly after, more legs appeared, and a voice asked sternly, "Who is there? There is no spirit of the spring. You are playing games with my water-bearer. Why have you frightened him?" It was my prince.

I rose slowly in the coming dawn. I have long hair, and it is long enough to cover my blushing cheeks, yet not long enough to cover anything else. I stood before him, unarrayed.

"It is I," I answered.

Those greenstone eyes stared, and his breath stopped. His gaze swept me in surprise and wonder, and I think, admiration.

"It is you!" he answered. "You have come to me. I don't even know your name."

"My name is Beautiful," I said, fighting shyness at my nakedness, fighting for composure. I was brought up to be proud.

"Beautiful, my hut is close. I will take you there through the trees so that no-one will see us. I will give you my tunic," he said, and slipped the tunic over his head, handing it to me. After that first glance, he hadn't stared, he steadfastly kept his gaze averted, respecting my modesty. It was still just dark as he led me through trees and shrubs, though soft dawn's glimmer was beginning to slip through the air.

We weren't far from his hut - it loomed in front of us within minutes and he took me inside where a small torch alleviated the darkness, throwing scant light about the tidy interior. There was a bed against one wall, a straw-stuffed mattress covered with skins and woven blankets.

"You must be tired," he said, following my gaze. "It was a very long way to row. Will you rest? But first, tell me, why are you naked?"

"I didn't row. There were no boats. I have looked these past three nights and I fear my father ordered that the boats be pulled high on the shore so that I couldn't find them. I am unclothed because I swam."

"You _swam_?" he asked, clearly astonished. His dark eyes glittered with the flickering flames from the torch and he stepped closer and picked up a lock of my wet hair, feeling its weight, and the weight of the lake water saturating it. "You swam to me, through the cold, in the dark..." he breathed in wonder. "Truly you are strong, and brave, Beautiful. Let me fetch you food and water. Sit down, here, here is a blanket, you shiver. Wait, I will soon return."

I sat nervously on his bed amongst the hides and furs, marveling at how soft it all was. I wondered what I was doing here. If he didn't marry me I would be ruined. What folly had I committed? Fathers arrange marriages for political purposes - silly girls don't run away from home to the first good-looking man they see who says something sweet to them. For all I knew he could already be married, although there was no sign that a woman lived here. He may have invited me here in a moment of weakness and lust, and since thought better of it. What sort of naive young fool was I? Perhaps he said such things to all the girls.

He was back soon with a pitcher of some sort of hot tea for me, liberally laced with honey, and a bowl with bread and stone-baked wood pigeon. I fell on the food with the hunger that only comes from swimming for several hours across a body of water. And from having to distract myself even as I desperately tried to think what I was going to do about the situation of my own making that I now found myself in.

He was silent as he watched me eat, and when I finished he gently took the bowl and cup from me and placed them near the door.

"Beautiful, we need to talk," he said.

I looked at the floor.

"Did you come here because you agree to marry me?" he asked, a fingertip to my chin, and lifting my face so that I had to look at him. "You must have, there could be no other reason. It will happen tomorrow, doubt it not. My father will perform the ceremony. I mentioned you to him, but I imagined I would have to come and get you myself, after the winter. I was planning to give your father goats and cloths and jewelry and anything else that might persuade him to give you up to me. I know love is no reason to wed - and I know this is sudden, this thing between you and me. But sudden as it is, it is true and cannot be denied, and your journey here proves the strength of it. I love you, and I will provide for you and care for you and cherish you for all of our lives," he said.

"I love you, too," I told him, simply. "I came because you asked me to."

He smiled, a smile that held triumph and yet humility, hope and confidence, tenderness and longing.

"Have you lain with a man before, Beautiful?" His voice was a caress.

"No." Mine was a whisper.

"Then we will wait until tomorrow, after the nuptials and the celebration. Now you need to sleep."

I knew it was very early morning, as we'd already heard the birds that trill in the violet quiet, and there was time yet before the day started for me to rest. It was true I was very, very tired, but being this near to him and hearing his voice and words renewed my energy. He was sitting next to me, an arm about my shoulders, his mouth so close that if I just reached a little I could bring my own into contact with it. I did so, and his other arm came up to tangle in my hair as we kissed. His breath sped immediately, and I put my hand to his chest to feel his heartbeat, to feel the thudding that sent his blood careening the way mine was.

"You don't want to wait? You would make me yours right now, before the vows?" he asked huskily. "Sweet one, I am willing, _more_ than willing, but you are fatigued and we have the rest of our days and nights together for love. Come now, lie down, and I will hold you as you sleep. I will not leave you."

So we lay down, me with my back to him, his arms about me. I did sleep, because the next thing I knew the heavy curtain at the hut's door was drawn back in mid-morning light and a head came through, a voice saying, "Wake up brother, you lazybones. You would waste the day?" and the head withdrew sharply with a muffled curse.

"There is a girl in there!" the voice exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" another voice asked. "Our brother knows no girls!"

My prince's arms tightened around me and he laughed quietly into my hair.

"I will know one soon enough," he murmured to me. "As my _wife_."

We emerged some time later, me in the tunic that was far too big, and leggings I'd had to tie at the waist with string, and a cloak he said had been handed down from his mother's family - a bridal cloak, the very same one she had worn to wed his father. Although it was quiet outside his hut, it appeared his entire clan had gathered waiting there to see who lay with the prince. At their head was his handsome father, whose face lit to see me. Next to him was a woman with jade eyes and red hair who must be the prince's mother. She came forward holding her arms out to me.

"Daughter, welcome," was her greeting.

"How did you get here?" the eldest son asked with undisguised curiosity, once introductions had been made.

My prince was proud and smiling as he told of my journey. "A feat _you_ couldn't hope to achieve, brother," he finished, with a wink at me.

"Well, obviously the two of you will have fine, and strong children, but let's all hope they take after their mother," his brother retorted.

The chief sent for a boat to be prepared so that he could cross the lake himself and inform my father that I had undertaken the journey willingly and not been abducted. Otherwise my father might send a band of warriors to come and fight for me and ensure my return. The prince's father took gifts such as one tribal leader might give to another on the happy occasion of a royal wedding.

"Do you think I will meet with your father's approval?" my prince asked with some concern, once we had been left to our own devices, and I wasn't sure.

"My clan didn't need an alliance with yours as we are already friendly, so I don't know. Our union will not really be expedient," I answered.

"Expedient or not, it will be happy. Surely that will be a consideration?"

"I think my father will be angry, initially, to tell you the truth," I said. "But even as he scolded me when I was young for having spirit, he was pleased. He grumbled that I would make a troublesome wife, but he would smile as he said it."

My prince laughed. "Troublesome? Because of your courage and initiative, and your trust in your intuition? If that's trouble I look forward to it."

My father_ was _angry. He came on the return trip with my prospective father-in-law, grumbling all the way. He stayed for all three days of the wedding feast, grumbling to anyone who would listen, but beneath his gruff exterior he soon became delighted, as it was apparent to all that my prince and I adored each other.

I had been taken to the women's hut in preparation for my marriage, I had various hairs plucked which was very painful, and I had impermanent insect-ink tattoos painted on me telling the story of my journey to love.

"We will make these tattoos permanent once your honeymoon is over," I was told. "People will still be talking of you in a hundred years. Your legend will outlive you."

The older women told me exactly what to expect on my wedding night and what to ask for. I blushed to hear them and they gave me toothless cackles, delighted by my virginity. I was instructed in how to prevent the making of babies until such time as I wanted them, and they told me how I could drive my husband wild. The next day they adorned me in all the splendor the tribe had to offer.

When I approached my prince and the assembled crowd that evening I trembled with nervousness, and my betrothed trembled too, his mouth falling open as I stood before him. I could only stare at him in quiet wonderment. Amongst all our people I had never seen anyone apart from him and his mother with such coloring as they had, and he looked magnificent.

"Princess of the Lake," he called me quietly, and when his father had finished saying the marriage words and blessing us, we kissed until people started to cough with embarrassment and boredom, although the elders from the women's hut kept up with their cackles.

The feast, as I have said, lasted three days although I must confess we missed quite a lot of it. My prince and I were busy with the business of getting to know one another better. In our hut he sang to me the song he had composed and he wound my hair around his fingertips and stopped to kiss me.

"My Beautiful, my love, my only, my wife," he sighed, caressing my shoulders, my arms, and between my arms, across the front of my body.

"My husband, my love," I answered him, and we both stopped speaking. We loved.

.

.

.

.

Based on a New Zealand Maori legend known as the tale of Hinemoa and Tutanekai


	5. Chapter 5 Click And Send

Characters property of SM, but I made up the uncle. Actually, I didn't. He's a character from mythology. True fact! I've even mentioned his real name.

**Click and Send**

My mother is ridiculously vain. Yeah, that's the word for it. She's a fright, really. She was pretty young when she had me, and I reckon that's when her development was arrested. Her dress sense is appalling and embarrassing, because she thinks she's still twenty-one, and a very tacky twenty-one at that, but her behavior is even worse. She flirts with _anything_ in trousers. She spends more time at the hairdressers than I spend sleeping, and then there's the nail parlor, and that torture-chamber where she gets her legs and underarms and eyebrows waxed. And elsewhere. I mean, she gets other body areas waxed - areas where nature intended woman to be as woolly as a mammoth, not bald as a coot. I don't find my body hair offensive, I really don't, but my mother is askance at the very thought that I have any. She thinks it reflects badly on her. She is as smooth as a peach.

"Mom, relax, would you? It's not like anybody sees me naked anyway, and even if they did, plenty of guys like their women au naturel," I've told her, to receive grimaces in response.

"Men are very _visual_, Bella," she insists. "They like to see what they're _getting into_."

Well, yuck, thank you very much for that.

"No, seriously, darling, you're a pretty girl. You could be really lovely if you'd just let me give you a makeover," she keeps offering, and, have you ever seen Edward Scissorhands? You know that neighbor woman, the one who tries to seduce poor Edward? My mom is like that woman, but a heck of a lot worse. If she'd just lay off the hairspray and the eyelash dye and the inch-thick makeup she puts on with a trowel, and the high heels and the push-up bras, she'd be beautiful. But no, she's such a caricature. The lipo made her thighs superskinny, the botox stopped any possibility that she could ever emote a single feeling using her face alone and the implants have given her breasts a perkiness previously unknown to man. Just to confirm all of her dubious endeavors, she found herself a misogynist wanker boyfriend who actually likes her this way. She has single-handedly put the feminist cause back by decades, and she doesn't even know it.

So I never take anyone home to meet her, ever, and she thinks I must be socially handicapped in some way, because she never meets any friends of mine.

"Bella, darling, why don't I introduce you to some of Phil's friends? A lot of them have sons who'd be the right age for you. Or, wait a minute - he has a brother who's a bit younger than him, a half-brother, really, and he's in insurance. He earns a lot of money, and he's a member of the golf club. He'd be perfect for you!"

Some slimy golf-playing, insurance-brokering uncle? Oh, please, Mom, even for you, this is going too far!

"Actually, no thanks. I think I'm gay," I say hastily.

"Bella, you couldn't possibly be gay! You have long hair!" my mother exclaims in shock. "Although, you never put on lipstick and you do insist on wearing those lace-up shoes..."

I flee, leaving her to doubt my sexuality.

And that's the pattern of my life, or part of it. Mom doesn't even work - she's a trophy bride, except that they're not married. Phil is such a pig that having Mom as arm-candy proves to all his friends that he's affluent enough to afford a girlfriend who doesn't have to work, and I'm the only fly in their ointment. Mom really wants me to be attached.

"Bella, I'm setting you up with Phil's brother. He already owns his own house. Don't worry about his age - an older man would give you some guidance. He'd bring you down to earth, you've got your head in the clouds most of the time, I don't understand you at all. Anyway, I've told him you're beautiful, and he's very keen to meet you. We're going to have a barbeque, it'll be the social event of the year. I'm inviting everybody. I've already planned my outfit, and I'll get my hair done, of course - and Bella, you're coming to the salon with me. I know you like this untamed, dragged-through-a-hedge look, but it's not going to work with Phil's brother. We'll get your make-up done too. You have so much potential - wait until I work my magic on you!"

Could I leave town? Could I heck.

Mom follows me around for days, fussing over me, wanting to get me ready.

"We'll get you a gel bra, you won't _believe_ what it'll do for your cleavage, darling. You're a bit small, like I used to be, but if you save up you can get your breasts done. Honestly, my boobs are so gorgeous now - getting them done was the best investment I ever made. They drive Phil wild!" she says, which I really don't need to hear.

The dreaded day approaches and I try and try to think of ways to get out of it. Fake an illness? Mom would make me put in an appearance even if I dropped dead. She'd arrange for an open coffin, and get the undertaker to put lipstick on me. Simply get on a plane and fly interstate to where my grandfather lives? I don't have any money, and when I rang Gramps to say I'd love to visit if he could spring me the airfare, he said regretfully, "I'd love to Bells, honey, but it won't be this month. I've had to do a few repairs on the house, and the coffers are bare. There's not much between me and the poorhouse. Give me a few weeks, and I'll gladly get you a ticket."

No help, there. And Mom's determination to fix me up with Phil's brother through pimping me keeps sinking to new lows.

"A thong, darling. It's a must. You can't have a pantyline showing, it's vulgar. And I've chosen the most stunning dress for you..." she burbles on, oblivious to my reluctance. "It's very tight, but you don't have any cellulite. Of course, neither do I..."

"Mom, really - couldn't you just lay off? I don't want a boyfriend, I certainly don't want one who's some kind of uncle removed, or who probably _should_ be removed, and if I did want a boyfriend I'd find one for myself..."

"Bella," she says, reproachment in her tone, although not on her face, since she can't muster expressions. "I'm only doing this for you."

So I figure I'll just attend this bound-to-be-awful barbeque, make small talk with the bound-to-be-awful brother of the certifiably awful mother-consort and it will be a forseeable non-event. I will have been a dutiful daughter, and Mom will realize that trying to set me up with someone of her choosing is a lost cause.

That's the plan, and as plans go, it's pretty sweet - wouldn't you think?

The morning of the dire day, my mom, Renee, drops me at what I privately call the ugly parlor, with instructions that she'll pick me up in two hours' time.

"I know I said I'd be here with you, and really, it would have been so much fun, but I'm getting Cerise to come by and do my styling at home, darling, so that I can still supervise the dressing of the house, and the setting out of the stemware," she says. Dressing? Stemware?

"I want you to have the full salon experience, though, and Azure will be looking after you," she adds. Cerise and Azure, heaven help me. I have refused _point-blank_ to have any de-fuzzing performed, so it's hair (of the _head_) and make-up only, and I'm barely sure I trust someone named _Azure_ even with that. I've said I'll meet Renee afterwards at eleven at The Rock which is a cafe down on the pier, overlooking the harbor.

And I'm wearing what I normally wear on any day of the week - jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. The full horror of the pouring me into some skintight and garish dress will come later.

Azure is as fake as her name, and in the ghastly make-all-women-look-generic torture chamber she does her level best to do just that. She sets my hair in giant rollers so it has big fat curls, which she lovingly tends until I'm a brunette Barbie, and she puts all sorts of gloop on my face - concealer, toner, foundation, highlighter, kohl, eyelash strengthener, eyelash lengthener - I lose track. It's enough to sink a ship by the time she's finished. Some collagen-enriched synthetic mask looks back at me from the mirror, gleaming along the cheekbones, and shaded underneath them. She drew along the outside of my lips before coloring them in, so my mouth appears bigger than it is. My hair looks like I escaped from the eighties in a time machine. It's all just awful.

I come out of there reeling, because I just can't cope with the fact that I look like I live in Wisteria Lane.

I slink into The Rock, and I can't even order anything because it would mess my mouth up to try to eat or drink. There is so much stuff painted onto my lips that they feel like they've been varnished and will never move again.

I take the furthest table from the door, the one in the corner, and settle down to wait for Renee, who may or may not be on time.

And while I'm waiting, looking out over the water wanting the day to be over already, I hear a voice behind me.

"I told Santa I couldn't wait until Christmas for my present, and it's only July, and here you are!" the voice says.

Oh, no. I determinedly keep looking the other way, hoping whoever it was would think I was hearing-impaired and go away.

"Are you waiting for someone? Wait no longer, I've arrived!"

What sort of a loser would trot out such tired and pathetic lines? Against my better judgment I turned to look, and yep, loser - no room for doubt. He's younger than you'd expect for a desperado, but for crying out loud, he has a pony tail. Blond hair, medium height, medium build, medium everything, except for the vague psycho-killer look in his eyes. His stare is a little too intense to be flattering. Just one look at him and I have the jitters.

"I'm waiting for my fiance," I answer, hoping to deter him.

"Well, I'll keep you company until he gets here," he says, and he actually has the nerve to pull a chair out and sit next to me at the table. "He hasn't given you a ring yet?" he remarks, looking pointedly at my left hand.

"Yes, it's lovely, a very sparkly diamond, we're just getting it re-sized," I reply, turning a little so that I'm not facing him, hoping he could read body language. Body language that says loud and clear GO AWAY.

He leans forward, elbows on the table. "Your fiance doesn't know the size of your fingers?" he asks, and there really is something not quite right about his eyes, about the look in them. "I'd call that a vital statistic," he continues. "You fiance doesn't know your vital statistics?"

"Look, I'm just sitting quietly watching the water, and I was having some me time, if you don't mind," I state as calmly and politely as possible. "I've got quite a lot to think about."

"I could give you a lot to think about," he says with a leer, oblivious to my having hinted that I wanted to be left alone. God, where is Renee? She's already late. It's nothing new, but I hope she's on her way and I'll be able to get out of here real soon.

"Oh, my phone just buzzed. I have a call. Excuse me, I need to take this in private," I say, and I get up and leave the table. I've got two choices - the restroom, or the front door. I choose the front door.

Of course, there's no-one on the phone, really. I hold it to my ear, and say loudly, "Darling? You're nearly here? In the team RV? I thought you weren't supposed to use it for personal business?"

The creep is right behind me.

"Oh, the whole team is with you? All those great big huge guys?"

The creep is walking right alongside me, grinning. "I don't think you're talking to anybody," he drawls. "Now why would you do that?"

He reaches and grabs my phone from me before I can prevent him.

"Nope," he shakes his head, holding it to his ear. "Nobody there. Your fiance hung up. Why don't you just relax and chat with me?"

He is actually starting to frighten me now, and I have no idea what to do. We're on the path that leads to the bay, which looks deserted, and I decide I should head back into the cafe, but this scary guy is blocking my way.

"A walk along the beach. How idyllic. We could get to know one another. I'd like to be better acquainted with you," he says, but it comes out with a sneer, and he's not even bothering to smile any more.

We're immediately under the cafe and can't be seen from the windows. Looking around urgently, I realize that we can't be seen from anywhere. I open my mouth to start yelling, but his hand comes up quickly and covers the lower half of my face.

"Now, now," he mutters and I bring my fist up and hit him as hard as I can. He staggers back, hand to his mouth, scowling, and the second unknown voice of the day speaks.

"What's going on? Are you all right?" from behind me.

Apparently the beach hadn't been deserted after all. A man stands there, looking warily from me to the creep. He's tall, taller than Ponytail, and looks like he means business.

"Everything's just fine, and why don't you piss off? My girlfriend and I are having a discussion," Ponytail says.

"I'm not his girlfriend, I have no idea who he is - he accosted me," I state quickly, and the newcomer frowns.

"Looks like you're unwelcome here, buddy," he says to Ponyboy, who seems to weigh up his chances, and then thankfully, he takes off.

"Do you want me to go after him?" my rescuer says.

"No, he's some jerk who followed me out of the cafe. As long as he's gone, that's good," I reply, feeling a little shaken, but relieved I'm under no immediate threat.

"Thanks. I'm glad you turned up right then," I add, taking a better look at Sir Galahad, who smiles at me.

"He's the one who should be glad. You were just about to deck him," he responds, and I have to blink a couple of times to clear my vision. This guy is gorgeous. The sort of guy you see waiting on tables in Hollywood just before their model-movie star career takes off. The sort of guy who likes the sort of plastic-fantastic hair and makeup I've got on now. The sort of guy who doesn't notice girls who don't subscribe to any of that sort of artifice. He's got designer hair, designer stubble, designer torn jeans, and cheekbones that surely some artist of a surgeon created. You'd clone him, except that his sort of good looks aren't DNA-derived, they're something money can buy.

"Ah, yeah, well, thanks anyway. You saved my knuckles," I tell him, and my phone beeps for real then. It's my somewhat tardy mother.

"Excuse me."

Renee is in a complete fluff. "Oh, baby I put the wrong time on the invitations. People are already here. I can't come and get you - I can't leave!" she wails. "Can you jump in a cab, baby? Come through the back way, text me, and I'll come and help you get dressed. I'm so sorry, honey!"

Well, it's not completely unlike her to have her best-laid plans go awry. But I don't have the money for a cab. Turquoise-face at the Ugly Shop had charged me a hundred-fifty bucks, which Renee had kindly given me.

"Uh - yeah, I'll see you real soon, Mom," I grimace. "Actually - can you pay for the cab when I get there? I've got no money."

"Sure, baby sure," she agrees, and ends the call.

I look up at Mr Handsome.

"Well I'm on my way to my elsewhere now. Enjoy the rest of your day," I say.

"Sure. You, too. Can we at least exchange names, though?" he says. "You're my first damsel in distress, but if I go into business I'd like to give you as a reference."

Cute. Very cute. "Isabella Swan."

He looks surprised. "Edward Cullen. Are you related to Chief Swan, by any chance?"

Now I look surprised. "The Boy In Blue? Yeah, I kind of am. Please don't tell me you're in one of his notebooks or photo files."

A thousand dollar grin parts his perfect lips, and looks actually real.

"No, my father is Carlisle Cullen, and he's a pathologist at City Hospital. He has a few dealings with Charlie, none of them of a happy nature, I'm sorry to say."

I've never met Carlisle Cullen, but Dad's mentioned him plenty of times. Dr Cullen has performed autopsies on most of the nasty death cases Dad has investigated. Dad is a member of the Carlisle Cullen Appreciation Society.

"My father speaks very highly of yours," Mr Cullen junior says, and I nod. This is all very nice, but I have this nagging knowledge that I must get to my mother's awful party. And Smooth-boy here would surely rather be talking to some girl from model-school than me, never mind who my dad is.

"I've kinda gotta get going," I mumble to him and he nods.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it sounds like you could do with a lift home. How about I take you?" he says.

I think about it. Catch a cab, skulk into my own house through the back door, then have to find my mother, humiliating both her and myself by being underdressed - or actually overdressed, since a fair amount of my skin is covered by my jeans and t-shirt - and then come back out again with money for the driver. Or - take a ride with Doctor's son here, definitely scenic, though probably not that much worth trying to talk to. The thought does cross my mind that I've just had a narrow escape from a possible psychopath, and here I am contemplating getting into a car with someone I don't know.

"A lift would be great," I venture. And I text Mom. _Getting a ride with Edward, Carlisle Cullen's son, be there soon_.

That should trigger search parties if I'm not back in twenty minutes. And everyone will know who to check out first. Son of CC. Have I safeguarded myself enough?

And it turns out Cullen Junior has a volvo.

"Nice," I say, and he reels off a fact or two about its safety features. Oh, okay, he's a bore.

"So what was happening with that guy, anyway?" he asks, before I actually get the chance to nod off.

"I don't know. He just came up to me at The Rock and went monster," I say.

Son of CC's car is highly comfortable.

"That was an impressive hook you've got there. A good right arm. He could have charged you with GBH," he remarks, which is in pretty poor taste I think.

"Yeah, well, don't make me mad," I warn.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he nods. "Is The Rock one of your regular hangouts then?"

"Nope. Never been there before," I say. "You?"

"It's not really my kind of place," he shrugs.

"Why not, then?" I ask, not that I felt any curiosity. I think I might as well keep the conversation going, rather than sit in silence for the duration of the drive.

"I'm not much for scenes. I hang with my brothers, or I go running, or I listen to music, or read," he says. "I'm a very boring, non-social guy."

He's sounding a little non-boring after that admission.

"What music do you like?" I ask, with slightly more curiosity.

"Obscure early Renaissance compositions for voice," he says, and I think he's trying to be a smartass. That makes him less boring, too, although two can play at that game.

"Like Greensleeves?" I answer, and his lip actually quirks in a grin. "And what do you read?"

"Medical textbooks."

"Working towards a Cullen medical dynasty? A father and son practise?"

"I'm going to be a surgeon, so no," he says. "Are we playing twenty questions? Do I get to ask you some?"

"Sure. Ask away."

"What music do _you_ like?"

'Oh, anything by Henry the Eighth," I reply breezily.

He grins again. "You do know his authorship of Greensleeves is hotly contested?"

"I mean Henry the Eighth _the band_," I state, as if he should know who they are.

"There's a band called Henry the Eighth?"

"Yes, there is and they're brilliant, and if you hung around in this century you'd know about them," I say. I have no idea if there is indeed a band named after England's most married King, and I have no idea why I was taking the piss out of Son of CC except that his hair looks so styled.

"Okay then, what do you do in your spare time?" he asks and my sense of humor completely runs away with me.

"I hang out on internet dating sites," I declare in complete dishonesty, with an expression I hope is somewhere between brave and embarrassed, as if I had admitted in my spare time I liked to try and give up bad habits.

He coughs, and is quiet for a few moments. "Ah, do you meet a lot of people that way?" he finally asks.

"Well, you know, it's not exactly _meeting_. Just looking at their details, you know? Say, are you single? Doesn't matter if you're not... you're just the kind of guy a lot of girls are looking for. Handsome, a doctor-in-training, a Volvo... the complete package. If I saw you online I'd press click and send," I say. Luckily, I am an aethiest, because if there was a god I'd be experiencing death by lightning bolt right now, for being so mean to the nice boy-man.

"I'm too busy for dating," he says hastily, and we're nearly at my place by then. I have to work out a way to get in undetected. I have to work out a way to survive the whole horrible ordeal. I have to work out a way to keep Phil's awful brother from developing any interest in me whatsoever.

Son of CC pulls smoothly into the driveway, and turns to face me. I suddenly think of a masterly, genius plan, just from looking at him. Handsome, a doctor-in-training, a Volvo... the complete package.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" I ask Edward.

"Going home to read medical textbooks," he says.

"Look, I know you've already done me a favor by rescuing me from the Ponytail Creep, and another one by driving me home, but how would you like to make it an even three?" I ask. I can't believe my own nerve.

"Three's a good number. What would be involved?" he inquires cautiously.

"My mom has planned this awful party to introduce me to an awful guy because I never go out with anyone - oh, sorry I made up that stuff about the dating sites - and could you come in for a while and pretend that you're with me? Just for half an hour or so? Then you could escape, and mom would have to give up on me and this uncle person..." Now I was wishing I'd been friendlier and nicer to Edward Cullen.

"Your mother is setting you up with your uncle?" he asks, with due horror.

"Yes," I mumble pathetically. "It's not illegal. Just unbelievable."

"And why did you invent that story about the dating sites?"

"I don't know. I just say stuff sometimes. I'm sorry, though."

He sighs. "I'll help you out, but only because of the uncle. Unless you made that up, too?"

"My imagination isn't _that_ twisted," I say.

And in we got, and he takes my hand.

"Everyone's staring at us," he mutters within about two minutes.

"Yeah, well, you can see why, can't you?" I answer. "You're gorgeous, and I haven't had a nosejob."

"You don't need one," he say. "Would your mother have canapés? I can't do this without food."

We make our way through the reception room and towards the bi-fold doors out onto the deck and the swimming pool, which are compulsory in this part of town. My mother has organized catering, of course, and there are trestle tables piled with plates of itty-bitty fattening foods, which will no doubt make a reappearance in the lavatory bowls of the city after having been ingested by the rake-thin women at this party.

"People are still staring," Edward mutters, stuffing his face.

"Well, I'm not exactly dressed for the occasion," I say, since everybody female is wearing something very tight and very short and very low cut.

"You look fine," he says, shrugging, spilling pastry crumbs which is actually quite endearing.

"Fine? I've got my own body-weight in cosmetic matter on my face and the contents of exactly one dozen cans of hairspray on my hair - and that would be about all that would meet with my mother's approval," I say. "Except for you. She will approve of you."

"I can't work you out," he says. "You're snarky one minute, and sarcastic the next. Where's your mother? And where's this uncle I'm saving you from? I already dislike both of them."

He really doesn't have any right to say that he doesn't like my mother, but I guess what I've said about her doesn't paint a very positive image. She's trying to arrange a marriage for me, with a relative, and she thinks hairspray is good. That's pretty much all I've said about her.

I don't have enough time to compose a more flattering verbal portrait though, because said mother makes an immediate appearance. She's wearing a peacock-blue very tight, very short, very low-cut dress, and Cerise has done something peculiar to her hair. She's threaded it with fiber-optic filaments, or something. It's twinkling. My mother looks like she has a constellation on her head, and I'm worried the whole thing could explode.

"Bella, baby darling, here you are at _last_," she begins, and she going to accelerate very quickly into whine mode if I don't play my ace. My ace plays himself, though.

"Renee? I've been looking forward to meeting you," he says, holding out his hand. As Renee takes it, looking astonished, he reaches for her shoulder with his other hand, bends, and puts his cheek to hers in a perfect air-kiss. She is so stunned she shuts up.

"I hope you don't mind me being here unannounced, but when Bella mentioned you were having this party, I had to come along and make sure everyone sees us together. After all, it's not as though she's on the market, is it? I'm Edward, of course, and I'm sure Bella's told you all about me."

Mom is still stunned. He's stunning.

Then Phil turns up, with someone who must be the brother in tow, and they head straight for me.

"That must be him - the uncle - that guy there with the white polo shirt and the beige _slacks_," I say in an undertone. His outfit screams both GOLF, and INSURANCE. The gruesome twosome approach and then stop short as Edward firmly slips an arm around my waist. They both kind of melt away, and Edward says he wants to find the drinks.

"Water for you, and water for me," he says firmly, and I lead him to the kitchen, babbling.

"You have saved my life, you really have. Uncle Fester will never bother me again, I'll be able to get at least six months' relief from Mom by pretending I have this amazing volvo-driving doctor boyfriend, and she won't keep thinking I'm such a discredit to her..."

"How could you be a discredit? What do you mean?" he asks.

"Oh, I'm making her sound awful, and she's not at all. She just worries because I don't fit in with her set. I don't subscribe to the whole cult of beauty thing, and I'm not chasing investment banker boyfriends. Really, she does have about an ounce of self-awareness, and with that ounce she wishes I'd find someone responsible to look after me because she knows it's not her forté. She cares for me more than anything, in her own funny way," I say, because I am just realizing that I have stumbled on to an acute analysis of my mother. "She means well," I add.

"Well Bella, if you want to know what I think, and there's no reason why you should, but I'll tell you anyway, you're - how old? Twenty or so? You needn't worry about the investment banker boyfriends, they're all boring and obsessed with money and you're never going to find one that you like, and you shouldn't ever need to affect your appearance to get somebody to approve of you or like you. Be firm with your mother and tell it like it is. You're not her. She should be pretty proud of you, really. You've got a strange sense of humor and you seem pretty clear-headed, and you can punch." He grins wryly.

"Yeah, that's what I said on my profile on the dating sites," I reply.

"Yeah? Click and send," he answers. "What do you _really_ do?"

I'd said he only had to put in an appearance for half an hour and then he could get away, but now he's showing no inclination to leave. I guess it hasn't been quite half an hour yet. He pulls a chair out for me at the kitchen table, and sits next to me, looking expectant.

"I'm studying developmental psychology," I tell him. "First year."

"And how are you liking it so far?"

"It's great. It's interesting. It's exactly what I enjoy," I say.

"And what are your plans after graduation? Clinical work?"

"No, actually, I want to go into schools. When my parents divorced I saw a counselor at my school, and she helped me so much I was inspired. I wanted to help other kids in the same way."

He is regarding me with one eyebrow raised. "Click and send," he says again. "You'd be quite a catch, wouldn't you? Attractive and clever? Why does your mother have to set you up with someone?"

I shrug. "You can see for yourself. I don't wear the right clothes. My boobs are small - that's not an invitation to look at them, by the way. I don't want to host or attend stupid parties for superficial people. As soon as I can scrape this muck off my face I will. I don't pluck my eyebrows the second I wake up every morning and I don't want to marry an insurance broker."

He looks at me sharply, and looks away, and then looks back at me. "There's nothing wrong with your clothes. Breasts are for feeding babies, and it doesn't matter to babies how big they are. Breasts also happen to be very nice to look at and play with, and any man honored and privileged enough to have permission to get his hands on a pair should never be so graceless or disengaged that he has a moment to think anything other than how lucky he is. And, without looking, your breasts appear perfectly fine to me. The men around here must be stupid," he says, "As well as shallow."

"Okay, thanks for that vote of confidence. I'll get a t-shirt printed that says "honk if you like my tits" and I'll hang around at traffic intersections and do a survey."

"Please don't."

But I sit there looking at him in all his male-model perfection, and I feel annoyed. "What about you, Mr Cheekbones?" I say. "How can you be putting these people down? Look at you, with your perfectly torn jeans, and your perfectly messed-up hair."

He frowns. "I've had these jeans for about five years now. I tore them when I fell off a bike on an off-road track. My hair is a disaster - it's always stuck straight out. I can't do a thing about it. I usually keep it shorter, but I hate going to the hairdresser so now it's all over the place. And I didn't choose my face, Bella. You haven't met my parents, but if you did you'd see... Well, let's just stick with my not having had any choice. I just look like this. And if you're critical of these people judging others on their appearances maybe you should have another think about what you just said."

I open my mouth to retort, and then I shut it again, because what he's just said makes perfect sense.

"Where's the bathroom?" he asks, and while he's occupied I'm going to give me another five minutes to think about how judgemental I am.

I give him directions and I sit there and wait, and while I wait, Phil appears again with uncle. Oh no. I am now undefended, and therefore vulnerable.

"Bella, honey, there you are. You look great! I want to introduce you to someone," Phil beams, and I can be certain he doesn't think I look great at all. He would think jeans are particularly crass and unbecoming, unless they are tight and have sequins and swirly embroidery sewn into them, and unless they're neatly pressed, with a seam mark down the front of the thigh.

"Yeah, hey, Phil, nice to see you," I mumble.

Uncle's impeccably pressed and searingly white polo has a little logo on it. "Broker with confidence, broker with Phineus." Ugh.

"This is my brother, Peter. He's been looking forward to meeting you," Phil says, and then he actually says, "I must go and find my lovely wife," - and he bails! He leaves me with Uncle!

As I stare after him with my jaw dropped at his unsubtlety, Uncle starts to chat. "Are you interested in the world of finance, Isabella?" he asks. "All women are interested in finance!" Then he chuckles. "Well, they're all interested in spending, aren't they?"

"Yes and no," I answer, which I figure is a safe answer, and is politer than Get lost. There's no need to be impolite.

"You know, I work in a really innovative field," he starts up. "I'd love to tell you about it. Do you have a drink? Let's get you a glass of something..." and as I wonder whether there actually _is_ a need to be impolite, like a guardian angel from the heavens the most welcome voice in the world says, "Thank you, ah - Phineus? Bella's all right for a drink just now, aren't you sweetheart?"

"Peter," Peter says, blinking.

Edward's arms encircle me from behind, and he nuzzles my neck for a moment, bent low over me as he's so tall. He finishes the nuzzle with a soft kiss, right where my neck and shoulder meet. I am nearly startled right out of my skin, and I try to disguise it by closing my eyes momentarily, feeling the trace of moisture his lips have left. When I open my eyes again, Uncle is staring in discomfort and annoyance. He almost looks turned to stone. After Mommy Dearest and Phil presumably having assured him of my availability, he certainly couldn't have been prepared to find me in someone's arms.

Edward turns me gently, winks so that Uncle can't see it, and leads me away, leaving poor Fester standing there, not that I feel sorry for the guy.

"Look, that was brilliant, and you've more than fulfilled your obligation. Thanks heaps," I tell Edward, and I'm finding myself a little disappointed that he's going to walk right out of my life any minute now, having done what I asked of him and managed to deflect Mom and Phil and Uncle. He's kind of interesting.

"It was no trouble," Edward shrugs.

"So, it's back to the textbooks now then, is it?" I ask.

"Yep," he nods.

"What particular strand of the medical body of knowledge are you studying today, anyway?" I ask. I don't want him to go. I want to keep talking to him. He's insightful and clever and he's unlike anyone else I've met around here, and the feel of his arms around me was incredible.

"Do you really care?" he says, with a slight smirk. "Or are you just trying to keep me here?"

I feel myself start to blush. Before I can string together an embarrassed mumble of a reply, he takes my hand again.

"You know what? I don't think it's going to be very convincing if I leave here now and you stay behind. Why don't you come with me?" he says.

I chance a look up. "What, and read about the secret life of corpuscles?" I ask, uncertainly.

"I'm not studying haemotology, so no."

"Oh, then, I suppose it would be something like The Beginner's Guide To Finding The Perfect Scalpel?"

He's smiling. "Not that either. But actually, I'm ahead on my reading. You could return the favor you now owe me and come and meet my mother. She's been dropping not-so-subtle hints for months now that I need to find myself a girlfriend."

"You don't have a girlfriend? How is that possible?"

In all my concern about my own situation I hadn't stopped to wonder about his, but now I can't think why he should be single, when after all, he's the complete package.

"Guess I haven't met too many girls with a strange sense of humor, who are clear-headed and really know how to wallop a guy."

Click and send. Really.

"You seriously want me to engage in a deceitful charade with you with the sole intention of misleading your unsuspecting mother and other family members?" I ask sweetly.

"If you want to put it like that, yes." Oh, I will engage. What a very good idea.

"Ah, okay, I'll come along and meet your Mom, and we'll go to whatever lengths you deem necessary, and_ I deem acceptable_ to give her the impression that you and I are on some sort of date, but can I chisel this deathmask off my face first?" I say flippantly. "Oh, and I'd better let _my_ Mom know that I'm going."

"Please do."

I go and tell Mom I'm going with Edward, and she looks as disappointed yet thrilled as only the mother-of-a-girl-who-has-just-announced-she's-leaving-her-own-mother's-party-to-go-home-with-a-gloriously-handsome-son-of-a-doctor can, and I get the gunkmuck off my face, and meet Edward, who is hovering in the hall waiting for me.

"So that's what you really look like? It's not so bad," he says, eyes narrowed, head tilted, sizing me up.

And we get into the volvo, Mom waving at the door, smiling and proud, the queen of her own backyard. I haven't even told her the doctor part yet, but she's seen the pretty silver car. Phil is behind her, not so happy. Uncle is presumably still a statue in the kitchen.

But before putting the key into the ignition Edward pauses and says, "You know, my mother's not going to find it credible that I turn up with someone she's never heard of before and claim that we're dating," and my heart suddenly sinks a little. Is he backing out?

"Uh-huh," I answer slowly.

"So, maybe we should actually go on a date first? Would you like to see a movie?" he asks.

Yes, I would! "Sure," I nod, not giving away my sudden excitement. "I'd like that."

We drive off into the sunset. Actually, it's only about four in the afternoon, but the sun is setting somewhere, right?

And I really had thought this was going to be a dire day.

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You're not going to guess what this one is based on unless you know your Greek myths.


	6. Chapter 6 Gossip Gurl

Have you noticed you can make the name Renesmee from the letters in Stephenie Meyer? You're left with Hepity and Yepith. Imagine if Nessie had had sisters...

This is terrible folks, just terrible. I apologize before you even start reading.

**Gossip Gurl**

If you want to know anything that's going on in town behind closed doors, I'm the one to ask. But don't try asking me how I know because I don't reveal my sources. I've just got a nose for the truth, that's all.

For instance, the new Mr and Mrs Cullen from the house round the corner had triplets _not long after they were married_, if you know what I'm getting at. It was a home birth, which was irresponsible. What if something had gone wrong? Like Mrs Cullen nearly bleeding to death or something? They would have had to involve the emergency services. And anyway, they're both teenagers. They shouldn't have been married and producing babies in the first place, if you ask my opinion. I mean, women can get _educated_ and have _careers_ these days. They can become literate enough to read baby name books and not have to make up godawful names themselves.

And man, those kids were hogs. Porkers, the three of them. They thought they were so special. They all grew up too fast, maybe their mother fed them those chickens with hormones in them. They got titties before any other girls their age, like when they were seven or something.

We called them the three little pigs: Pork, Bacon and Ham. Which is nicer than their real names believe me.

Now, if you've ever caught sight of them round the place you will have noticed they all have partners. Exactly quite how three strips of fat crackling like them attracted anybody is beyond the understanding of most people, but I can tell you a bit of what happened.

By the time they were eighteen they were such awful brats that their parents told them all they had to leave home. Mummy and Daddy were so rich that they were going to buy them a house each, so the precious little piglets wouldn't have to try living with anybody else because even their doting but realisitic parents knew they were too obnoxious for anyone else to put up with them.

Their Grandma likes to think that she is some sort of a design-person and she planned out this sort of experimental modern dumb ecology house made from natural materials, blah blah, palm tree things that was supposed to look Indonesian. Whatever that means. It looked like straw to everyone else. So Pork, I mean Hepity, the first one, is sitting in this impractical and ugly house one day and there's this really sweet guy who lives close by called Seth, who is just so nice he felt sorry she never had any visitors, and he dropped by to see her. We call him the wolf because he does marathon running and never seems to get tired. He's just skinny and fit. Seth is of uncertain gender preference, if you know what I mean, so it wasn't like he liked Hepity or anything, in fact according to the grapevine he actually liked her _Dad_, which is the worst thing imaginable. But after that first visit which may or may not have involved finding a _sausage_ or hiding one, Seth and Hepity started to hang together all the time. There has been public ear-nuzzling and neck-licking. Even biting. She kind of looks like her father which is very unfortunate for a girl, to look like a man, but whatever. Sethywolf must like it.

And the next one, Bacon, whose actual name is Yepith (I know, isn't it dreadful?) has her own dumb house right next to her sister. At least Grandma's architectural aspirations weren't too embarrassing second time around, because the house is made out of actual wood, not dry grass. There's this girl called Leah who is actually Seth's sister, and of course she's known as wolf-girl, for two reasons. One is her brother, and the other is she doesn't own a razor, if you know what I'm getting at. You should see her legs. _Fur_. She always hangs with the boys like she thinks she's one of them and she has never been sighted in a dress. _Are we on the same page here_? So Leah drops round to see Yepith for some reason or other, and she knocks on the door and Yepith is saying "No, go away, I'm not home," but I have no idea what Leah says to her, and the next thing you know, Leah goes in. _And I mean that_. Yepith showed her the barbecue pit. She doesn't even come out again until the next morning. The two of them are smirking all over their faces from then on, and there has been boobie-gropage observed. In a town this big!

And so to the story of Ham. Her real name is something no-one can actually say, because it sounds like blowing your nose. So when anyone wants to refer to her, they make a noseblowing sound. We all know what it means, broadly speaking, although there is some confusion during flu season.

The hottest boy in town is this guy called Jake and he has a motorcyle and long hair and huge muscles and everything. Dude is tall, and he has a grin like the puppy dog you want to roll around on the floor with. Ham is all set up in her hamble abode (did you see what I did there?) and a whole new street had to be built for these three, I tell you, because nobody wants them for neighbors. Now Jakey-love and Ham's parents have known each other for ages and they have a _weird_ relationship which consists of him and Ham's Dad sniping at each other constantly and her mom rolling her eyes. So Ham and Jake know each other pretty well, and apparently she invited him round one night for dinner. He eats like a hog, and she _is_ a hog. I wonder what she was planning to give him? Pea and ham soup? I kill me.

Now, I know everything that happened, but I'm sure I don't need to fill you in on all the tiny details. Let's just say, Jacob Tail-wagger and Miz Resneezemee Cullen have been umbilically joined ever since. I think Jakey actually did get himself some _ham on the bone_ that night and I bet he licked it right up too, if you know what I mean.

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Who is the narrator? That will be one of the vexing questions of our time.

With a nod and a wink to AzureEyedI and Dihenydd, who will know why, my dears.


	7. Chapter 7 A Darkness Of Red

I haven't even named these characters, but you know who they are. There's an inevitability to it. Woo-hoo, does that mean I don't have to credit SM?

**A Darkness of Red**

Many have told my story, but it has never been told in my own words or in my own voice, so I will tell it to you now that you may know. The common version perverts the most important point and that is the thing that I must tell you. The truth is that I was not taken against my will, as all the old versions of the stories say. Neither was I seduced, or coerced in any way. The truth is that I was not only willing, I started it.

I am told modern people have no patience with the old way of story-telling, they like their words direct and quick and simple, and they do not care for flowery phrases and excessive imagery, or explanations of every character's lineage and past glories and future expectations. I will confine my tale to short words, and make it brief and I will put it into a modern setting so that you may take it in before your attention wanders. I will be quick!

My handmaidens and I - already I err - I will call them friends - my friends and I were spending an idle morning picking flowers in the meadow, gossiping and giggling as girls are wont to do, and the subject of potential suitors for me was introduced. The girls always look to me, their mistress, in any conversation for cues as to how they are to respond and so they watch me closely. One of our number was reciting names and they were all scrutinizing my countenance, eager to know whether any of the males of our acquaintance had caught my eye. Probably they were all expected to report back to my father if I was ever to show any interest. At one particular name something must have betrayed me, though I endeavored to remain impassive. They exchanged glances with raised eyebrows and nods towards one another, and I became annoyed.

"Wait here. I must attend to the call of nature and I shall be but a few moments," I ordered sweetly, and they had to obey me, because they have no other calling in life than to do so.

I slipped away into the trees for privacy, and stilled my beating heart. The name that had affected me was that of a young man I was sure my father would disapprove of, if only because my father thought I was too young yet for my regard to pass from him to another. The man in question was impossibly beautiful, he was cool and arrogant and unreachable and enigmatic. All those things drew me as a red rag draws a bull.

Lost in my mental wanderings, I hadn't realized I had left my friends a fair way behind amongst the trees bordering the pretty meadow, and I had come to the road.

A silver car hurtled along it as if drawn by bolts of lightning, and I knew that car.

Do I need to tell you his name? I don't know that it is important. You will know the name from the stories, just as you will know mine. No, I don't think they matter. What matters is what happened.

He stopped the car and leapt from the door, approaching me with a frown.

"I've seen you before. You're from my school, aren't you? What are you doing out here on your own?" he asked me abruptly.

"I was walking with my friends, and I became separated from them," I answered, affecting an air of helplessness and worry.

"Don't you have a phone? Couldn't you ring for help?" he frowned even harder, disapproving of my wasting his time.

"The battery has expired," I said, standing a little straighter.

"Where do you live? I'll take you home," he grudgingly offered. The trouble with cool and arrogant people is that they lack patience and goodwill.

"I live on the other side of the woods. I don't feel at all well. Have you any water?" I asked, putting a hand on his forearm. I had no plans to let him out of my sight or my company. I had other plans.

"No," he answered tightly, "but I live near here. I was on my way home. My father is a doctor, I could take you to my house and he can have a look at you...and then I will take you home."

"Yes, please," I told him.

"Shall I call anyone on your behalf? To tell them where you are?"

"My father is at work now. I would rather not bother him there, if you don't mind. Thank you for your kindness in helping me," I answered and he opened the passenger-side door of his car for me.

He was strong, his strength permeated the air between us. He was dominating, but I had already won something between us, if he had but known it. Fate had thrown a chance to me, and things would go my way.

At his house his father saw me and pronounced that nothing appeared to be amiss, but I asked if I might rest for a short while before being taken home. Father and son nodded, and I was escorted to a divan in a darkened room to lie down and recover from whatever ailment it was that could so rob me of vitality and leave me listless.

Meanwhile, I had espied my weapon of choice upon a bench in the kitchen as we passed through it, and I had conceived a plan.

After a short time the son returned to me and asked if I was sufficiently rested. He asked if there was anything I wanted. There certainly was - six feet tall and red-haired and standing right in front of me.

"I am a little hungry," I confessed. "I don't wish to impose - but could I perhaps have some fruit?"

He returned instantly with a bowl and there it was, amongst grapes and cherries - the fruit I had already seen and desired, round and plump in shades of pink and deeper pink, and cream and deeper cream. Like my skin, like my breasts. I knew what the insides of it would be. I knew what the taste would be. I knew what would happen.

"Thank you for your hospitality. I do feel quite recovered now," I murmured sliding myself to a sitting position and looking at him from under my lashes. He still frowned - he only ever frowned. I wriggled and made unnecessary tugs at my clothing and attempted to smooth out wrinkles in the fabric and his eyes followed my hands as I meant them to, and when his gaze returned to my face I darted my tongue out and licked my lips.

"Do you have a knife?" I asked, but the fruit was so ripe that as I cradled its pretty weight in my hand a seam along it burst, exposing the interior. Such a darkness of red was in there, such an entire world of sensuous delight that my breath stopped on an inhalation and I swallowed, staring up at him in open invitation.

Frowning he was, always frowning, and his intensity thrilled me as I stood and leaned into him, one palm flat against his chest. He stared down, eyes widening. He hadn't expected me to move towards him but he wasn't stepping back, and he wasn't stopping me.

I held the fruit in my other hand, out towards him. Eve had tempted Adam in this way - but was it actually fruit she offered, or something else? Was it fruit he took?

I held fruit out to the moody, dark-eyed boy whose heart thundered under my hand and now his eyes narrowed. He read me and he knew. I read him too, and I knew.

With infinite slowness he cupped my hand in his own, the hand holding the fruit, and pulled it towards his mouth. His eyelids flickered down as he watched what he was doing, then back up as he searched my face. His cheekbones were prominent, his beauty hard, unsoftened by smiles or tenderness, but I was unafraid. The fruit lay open now, split, and his red tongue slipped between his lips to lap at it, and to capture some of the seeds from where they lay in their jeweled casing. Scarlet, crimson, ruby. Redder than cerise, but pinker than blood. The stain was on his tongue as he kissed me.

I took his tongue into me, and it bore the seeds. Six pomegranate seeds. I swallowed them, and I made love to his mouth. We were wed by that action - me to him, and him to me. We kissed in surprise and pleasure and drew back from one another in love.

The oft-told tale is that my mother came for me, that she grieved and caused winter to fall upon the land while she searched. Fools! The seasons can be explained by science!

My father found me. The girls informed him when I didn't come back from my few minutes alone in the woods, and they told him they had been talking about the boy I might or might not admire.

My father knew where to come. He left work early and found me not long after I had fallen in love, and he took one look and knew my loyalties had shifted, that I was a woman, no longer a girl, and that I chosen my mate.

My dark prince deferred to my father and called him sir, but none of us believed my father still had any authority over me, as that single kiss had changed everything. The kisses that followed had dictated the future course of the earth itself. There is no force in the universe more powerful than love. My father couldn't argue it or forbid it. My prince and I exchanged promises with our eyes, and with the touch of our fingers upon one another's, and I went with my father to make my farewells to the old way of being.

But his house was no longer my home. It was only a matter of time before my lover and I would share our lives.

"Don't forget your old man, will you now? I expect you to come visit me now and again," my father said, when I told him of my intention to wed.

"Of course, Daddy, I love you," I assured him. My fiance and I planned to leave, and attend university elsewhere. "I'll be back over summer."

That is the true story. As I said, _I_ was the one who started it. And I said I would tell you quickly.

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	8. Chapter 8 Love's Blue Flowers pt 1

I haven't written anything for absolutely ages, don't know why. But here's the next thing.

This story is M rated. Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

**Love's Blue Flowers** - Part 1

Mealtimes are quiet affairs in our house, as there are only two of us. Dad always says that the dinner was real nice, and I clear the table and wash up. That's it.

Years ago, our family had three members - Dad, Mom and me, but then Mom left, and I didn't know what had gone wrong.

"Grown-ups' business, darling, you'll understand when you're older. But both of us love you very much," she'd said with a sad head shake, hugging me. She'd gone away though, despite how much she claimed she loved me, and I'd stayed in the blue house.

I'd cried for quite a few nights, because I thought it was my fault. I hadn't tried hard enough to be a good girl, so my mommy couldn't stand to live with me. Dad had come in and stood helplessly by my bed until one morning when I opened my eyes he was holding out a box to me. On opening it, I saw he was presenting me with a ragdoll.

I was eight years old, and none too into dolls, and I took this one wordlessly and left it on the pillow as I got dressed and ready for school. When I came home that afternoon it was still lying there, with its sewn-on eyes staring blankly into space.

"Stupid doll," I scoffed. "What would you know about anything?"

It was still there when I came up later to go to bed, and I shoved it onto the floor. In the night though, I looked over and saw the doll was as sleepless as I was. I picked it up and gave it some space next to me.

I don't remember how long it took for me to start confiding in the doll. I just somehow found that if I whispered secrets to it, once I'd unloaded them I could sleep. I wasn't crying so much either, with my silent friend to share my feelings.

I named her Angela, and she lay on my pillow all day, waiting for me to come home and talk to her. It was like prayer I guess, the talking. It was my therapy. First I told her about my mom, and my guilt, and then it tumbled into everything. I related what I did at school, who was mean or nice to me, what I thought of my teacher, whatever. Angela took it all and she never judged me. She never said anything back. She accepted me.

There was one person I didn't discuss with Angela, though. That person was my dad. He just never came up in my conversations. Looking back now, I know I avoided even thinking about him for ages when mom left. I know why too. Maybe it wasn't just me who'd driven her off. If I thought about him, I would have to admit to myself how angry I was.

Reasons to be angry with my dad:

MOM LEFT.

- it was _his_ fault.

- he didn't make her happy.

- he didn't stop her from going.

- he didn't go after her.

- he didn't keep our family together.

- he caused the emptiness.

And when the emptiness had settled on me, he didn't make it go away. He couldn't make my mom happy because he was too dumb, and he couldn't make me happy either. Any happiness that had been in our blue house left, never to return. It was all him.

I started to tell Angela about being angry.

The thing was, Angela wasn't the right one to talk to. Angela was accepting and passive, the uncomplaining recipient of all my sad offloading. I needed someone else for venting my more aggressive feelings.

And that's when Tanya came along. With shifting the blame for my parents' split from myself to my father, I'd gone from sadness to rage, and Tanya took over from Angela because Angela was soft and kind, and she comforted me. Tanya agreed with my more aggressive emotions, and Tanya supported me. She lived in the same cloth body as Angela, but her personality couldn't have been more different. Angela thought I should learn to live with my suffering; Tanya thought I should punch walls and people and yell my head off. Yeah, _shit,_ I hate everyone! Who cares if I curse? What the damn hell are you going to do about it? That was Tanya.

My Dad was quietly puzzled by the change I began to manifest, but so what? _Dork_! _Loser_! _Fool_!

Between them, Angela and Tanya got me through my parents' separation and divorce. They were two faces of the same coin - the currency of pain. One allowed me to be sad and quiet and confused, the other let me be raging and loud and confused. They were my silent sentinels, privy to what I never told anyone else. They saw me through the dark.

In time I adjusted and my life with my dad became the norm. I didn't see him as the bad guy any more, just someone whose marriage had broken down irreparably, and who had endured quietly, and gone about his life. All three of us were injured parties. I saw my mother when I was on vacation, and all up I was just another one of the kids from a broken family. School was full of them.

And I went on to high school, and it was time I stopped talking to Angela and Tanya by then. I wasn't traumatized over my parental situation any more. I could go visit my mom in Phoenix regularly, which was more than the kids with intact families ever got to do. I called it The Hot Place. Yeah, a sense of humor. I'd discovered somewhere along the line that I had one, and I'd discovered that my dad did, too, buried under layers of quietness. Mom, not so much. I got along just fine with both of them, in different ways.

Dad kept the house the same as it had been until one day he got the idea from somewhere that it was a shrine to our past, and was stopping us from moving on, so then he decided he wanted to change it. My dad is not one for change though. He got as far as accepting some new cushions for the sofa from a well-meaning friend, and that was it. But it was around about then that Angela and Tanya got promoted. I didn't want them in my bed any more, now that I was a teenager. They came downstairs to enjoy the ambience from the window seat in the kitchen, and to preside over family interactions. Pretty much all the talking that Dad and I did was over the meal table.

Things were slow and quiet, but that was okay.

Now, where are we? Let me just think back to when Edward Cullen appeared in my life.

I was in twelfth year. His family appeared at school, all seventeen of them, or that's what it felt like. They were an invasion, a bunch of aliens turning up to subjugate the indigenous people. There was Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Alice and Edward. That's a big family by modern standards. For a couple of days, people muttered "Catholics," when the Cullens arrived in the morning, almost like it was an insult, although our town has plenty of Catholics. It's just, in our town, only poor people have that many children, and the Cullens were rich. They were filthy rich, if their clothes were anything to go by. As far as any of us could see they were better dressed than movie stars.

And they all actually _looked_ like movie stars. They were so goddamn beautiful, each and every one of 'em. Edward was the most beautiful of them all, and he was in my year. I couldn't believe it, could not actually believe it, when I found he was in most of my classes.

I started talking to Angela again, because I knew I could tell her without being embarrassed. I could tell her that along with every other girl in the entire school, I had a hopeless crush on Edward Cullen.

The Cullens kept to themselves a little, being the small army that they were, and the rest of us hovered around their periphery. We tried to pretend that we had been perfectly okay before they turned up, and we'd been perfectly okay since. I steeled myself against Edward's sheer presence on a daily basis, because I had never been so hyper aware of a boy before and I thought perhaps I had a bit of an allergy. I all but broke out in a rash whenever he sat down next to me, and I fidgeted restlessly in my seat for the entire period of whatever class it was, holding my breath until I let it out in gasps. He would give me strange looks, and I didn't blame him.

"Are you asthmatic?" he even asked me one day, and I shrugged and nodded, figuring he would surmise that asthma led to speech problems in that it's a respiratory complaint.

We were all sitting in English Lit near the end of term wrestling with having to write an exposition on Murder in the Cathedral, when he muttered under his breath, "Never mind Thomas Beckett, I'd like to murder my fucking _brother_."

It had been loud enough for me to hear clearly, and I wondered if it had been meant for my ears.

I turned.

"What?"

"Have you got a brother? Would you like to swap?" he asked. "Oh, no, forget about it, I wouldn't wish Emmett on anyone."

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. The teacher had excused herself from the classroom for ten minutes, and we were taking advantage of the opportunity to talk freely about anything other than twentieth century plays.

"Oh, it's _pathetic_. I don't know why I'm even talking about it. Someone ate all the ice cream out of the freezer last night, and when my mom questioned us this morning, Emmett said it was me! It wasn't, so that means it was him, because no-one else said anything. He is a fucking _moron_," Edward lamented.

Edward Cullen, unattainable and god-like, was upset he'd been accused of being an ice cream thief.

"_Did_ you take it?" I asked him.

"No! Do you think I'd sneak around in the middle of the night, like some sweet-tooth petty criminal, stealing ice-cream? _Jesus_!" he exclaimed. "Emmett's a fucking liar!"

For a Catholic, he sure cursed a lot. "Well, didn't your mom believe you?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes.

"She didn't know who to believe. What happens in _your_ family when everyone's telling a different story?" he asked.

"Um, there's only me and my dad. I would never try to steal anything, because there's no-one else I could blame. My dad would know it was me," I admitted. Miss Goody Two-Shoes.

"Really?" he said. "No siblings? You are _blessed_. God, your life must be peaceful. You never have to fight for the remote."

I had never thought of myself as blessed.

"You never have to listen to someone playing fuckawful hip hop that you hate at a decibel level that's illegal. Nobody bangs on the bathroom door when you're trying to get five minutes' privacy. Do you know how lucky you are?" he continued.

"I guess," I answered doubtfully.

"You don't have to eat everybody else's favorite fucking dinners four nights of the week. Just you and your Dad? Oh my God, when it's my turn with the washing up, there is _seven_ people's worth of crap to scrape off the plates!"

I wanted to keep the conversation going, but I didn't know how to. It was a fascinating insight into family life, after my sheltered years with my father, and it was Edward letting me in on it. _Edward_.

"We don't really have much washing up to do," I offered.

"And no-one pinches your socks, probably, and if you put your i-pod down somewhere, it doesn't turn up three days later in your sister's pocket..."

When the teacher returned Edward was shaking his head in dismay at the antics of his family, and I was reassessing my envy of people who had brothers and sisters. We were directed back to our essays, and the rest of the class passed in silence.

On my way out of the classroom, Edward was right behind me.

"Hey, I kind of zoned out for a lot of that last hour," he said. "Could I maybe look at your notes? You want to sit with me at lunch?"

I had no aversion whatsoever to sitting next to Edward at lunch and talking to him about T. S. Eliot.

Edward didn't really speak out in class, but he was obviously very bright, and from what he said at lunch I realized he was already familiar with the text and didn't need my notes at all. So why was he with me?

"You didn't really ask me here to discuss martyrdom and its relevant aspects, did you?" I said, boldly. "Did you want to talk some more about ice cream?"

My Dad's sense of humor is so understated it's almost not funny. Mine's the same.

Edward looked startled, and then thankfully he laughed. "Ice cream, and criminal responsibility. The two are closely linked. I wouldn't steal choc-swirl if I was having a fit, but boysenberry ripple... that's a whole different kettle of fish."

"Fish ice cream? Yuck."

"Funnily enough, we don't buy much in the way of fish-flavored cold confectionary."

"Well what exactly was missing from your freezer? A simple stocktake would be enough to identify the culprit. A mother who knows her kids' preferences would know that."

"Yes, but Emmett's cunning."

This nonsense conversation was flirting. Surely.

The bell for next period rang and lunch break ended, but something had started. I mentioned it to Angela when I was preparing dinner for myself and Charlie that night. She was happy for me, I could tell. I was wondering if I was misreading the signs I thought I'd picked up from Edward, and building them up into something that wasn't there. Ever the voice of reason and calmness, Angela was all for biding my time. Tanya thought I should should jump straight on him. They were polar opposites, the twin holders of my fears. It was good to talk to them again, and reassuring, in lieu of a mother. Well, Renee was only at the other end of the telephone, but I wasn't going to call her and ask her what to do about a boy. Her marriage had failed! Her advice couldn't be worth much.

To my delight, Edward sought me out again at school the next day, and again after that. And oh my God he was lovely. We talked about school stuff mostly, then as we got to know each other better our conversations got more general. We agreed and we argued, and I was loving every minute of it.

"The intelligent watchmaker?" he started. "If he's that intelligent, why is there an extra six hours per year? Why couldn't he just get it all to work mathematically?"

And, "Democracy is a farce. Under our current so-called democratic system why is power and wealth so concentrated in the hands of so few? Are you telling me the majority voted for that?"

And, "If I see one more picture of one more so-called beautiful woman celeb skinny clothes-horse plastic-faced nobody who's had her tits done, I'm going to barf. Stand clear."

I continued to get the rundown on his family, though.

"Jesus, Emmett's a fuckwit. You are so fucking _lucky_. Nobody needs an Emmett in their life."

"Rosalie is _such_ a primadonna. What did I do to deserve being related to her?"

"Jasper is the world's biggest pain in the ass. You don't know what moaning is until you've heard him."

"Why does Alice have to be such a fucking _flake_?"

Not that he was always complaining. Most of the time he was good-natured, if slightly serious. We didn't see each other out of school, though. Edward never so much as asked me what I was doing on the weekend, let alone whether I'd like to do anything with him. In the face of his apparent disinterest I didn't have the nerve to mention concerts and parties to him and suggest he come along, although I was starting to go out now and again. Despite Charlie having set a rule that I wasn't allowed to seriously date until I finished school, I could go out with groups. Edward was never anywhere I went.

"So there was a party at Newton's last Saturday? So what?" he said once on a Monday morning. "I was busy making my own fun."

"Doing what?" I asked.

"Reading, homework, study. Increasing my brain power. You should try it," he said, although my grades were as good as his.

"No need," I smirked.

"You're not stupid, are you?" he asked, when we compared test results.

"Thought you had a monopoly on A's?" I grinned.

It was over a long weekend when I got a call from him, out of the blue. He'd never called me before.

"Do you want to get together? Go hiking with me? You know, the great outdoors. Wear practical shoes. There'll be walking," he said. He sounded hesitant.

"On foot?" I asked, trying to sound hesitant back. On the inside I was woo-hooing.

Dad wasn't even home, so I didn't need to get his permission. It was day time anyway, so it wasn't a date. There would be any alcohol, and I wouldn't be home late.

It turned out what Edward had in mind was to drive to the school car lot and climb Mt Kilimanjaro behind the school. In all my years living in this town, I'd never been up there.

"Who do you think you are - Sir Edmund Hillary?" I asked him. "Do I look like a sherpa to you?"

"Shut it, Swan. You're not even carrying anything," he answered.

"Edward, the habitats are changing. It's becoming alpine. Did you bring yak-wool hats in your backpack? Maybe it's time to break them out."

"You're worse than Jasper."

"I think I just saw a condor."

"Do you pay any attention in geography? We're too far north for condors."

"Nobody knows they're here. Nobody human has reached this altitude before. Icarus got this close to the sun and look what happened to him."

"He was a self-immolator. You're nowhere near high enough above sea-level to worry about it."

"I can practically touch the_ moon_."

We went on, and I swear we were almost in the clouds. It got colder as we found what appeared to be the crest of a ridge, amongst trees.

"Did you bring food?" I asked Edward. "I wouldn't want to perish up here."

"I've got food and water and a blanket, Bella. If you would kindly stop complaining, you might appreciate the scenery."

Just as he said that, he pulled me through some tree trunks, and a vista appeared right in front of us. It was a clearing in the woods with sunlight streaming down, a rich and verdant place with blue-purple flowers springing in abundance out of the grass. I had never imagined a place of such enchantment a mere couple of miles from my home.

"How did you know about this?" I demanded in astonishment.

He shrugged.

"I googled cool places around Forks to impress a girl," he said.

Okay. I had to hide a blush of sudden nerves combined with sudden absolute pleasure, and I proceeded out to the lush grass, stepping carefully to avoid the clusters of flowers. I was impressed all right. By the place, and by what he'd said.

"What are these flowers?" seemed a safe question.

"Ah - bluebells? Violets Forget-me-nots?"

"I thought you googled this place! Why don't you know?"

"I just looked at the map. I didn't say I read the stub," he mumbled.

Exploring a little awkwardly while keeping an eye out behind me, I was aware Edward had slung off his backpack and unrolled the blanket strapped beneath it. By the time I returned to him he'd set out bread rolls and ham and salad.

"To your good health," he said formally, handing me a plastic flute glass with sparkling water.

"Yours too. Ditto," I answered.

He blinked at me a couple of times, and I wondered what was coming next.

"At your house you probably have good manners and restraint. You probably say things like "Pass the biscuits please," and "May I have another slice of apple pie?" You probably don't fall on the food like lions ravaging a zebra carcass. At our house it's the quick and the dead. I'll try not to shock you," he said, and then I saw him eat. It was hilarious.

"You're a hog!" I exclaimed.

"I'm not as bad as some," he mumbled defensively with his mouth full, and I still hadn't even picked anything up. "I used a lot of energy getting up here. I'm hungry. You're not a bulemic sparrow, are you? You only eat one crumb at a sitting, and then you have to throw up?"

I took some bread to prove I could eat with the best of them. He and I had had lunch together at school unnumerable times, but this was still an eye-opener.

"My life kind of revolves around food, this year," he added. "Last year it was music. Next year I'm planning to move onto astrophysics."

I nodded in consideration of what he'd said. "I'm sure NASA will be interested in your resume. There hasn't been a lot of research into pigs in space, and it's a burgeoning field."

Edward snorted and it made him cough and he spat partially chewed bread all over me. Grabbing a paper towel from his backpack, he dabbed at my chest, and then stopped in shock when he realized he had actually touched my breasts. I was shocked, too.

"Sorry. I didn't mean..." he whispered. "Oh, God, I would never touch you without your permission..."

We were both scarlet and we both dropped our eyes and ate quietly, willing the embarrassment to pass. At least that's what I did. I was hoping for a distraction, like a thunderclap or something, but nothing happened. When I finished my mouthful and swallowed I looked back at him and he was still blushing so furiously I ended up just laughing.

"Sorry," he mumbled again, shaking his head. "Glad you find me so amusing."

After that he produced an ipod and gave me one of the earbuds, taking the other one himself. We lay down side-by-side and talked about the songs, and even sang along to some of them. My singing is awful and I know it, but his voice was lovely.

"Don't ever do that in public, will you?" he said. "People will call the nearest emergency vet. They'll think there's a cat being strangled."

"You can talk. If you ever do that in public people will call the nearest emergency vet because they'll think there's a cat that _should_ be strangled."

We spent an hour or two there, sometimes chatting and sometimes not, until he said we should mosey on along.

"Does your Dad even know you're with me today?" he asked, and I had to say no.

"Would he be okay about it? Or would he shoot me?"

"The latter is a distinct possibility."

"Well, Jeez, what about the grapevine? Won't he hear that I picked you up and dropped you off?"

"Probably. Oh, crap. We have to silence the neighbors."

"Okay. We need a plan. Bribery, blackmail or a hatchet job and a shallow grave?"

"You have such a criminal mind. Why don't we blame hallucinogens in the town water supply?"

"_I_ have a criminal mind? Yours is twisted. Why don't we take the easy way out and offer sexual favors? It's worked for me in the past."

"I heard about that you. I thought it was just gossip."

We grinned conspiratorially at each other, and he pulled up in the driveway to the blue house. I'd have to work out something to tell my father, something credible.

By the time Dad got home though, he already knew. Old Ma Big Ears, the nosey bitch two doors down whose face was permanently glued to her window, had apparently called him at the station.

"I heard you went somewhere with the Cullen boy today. Bella, we've talked about the subject of you dating. There won't be dating until you're through with school."

"Dad, Edward and I are lab partners in Biology class, I told you that. We were supposed to collect some samples for the botany unit that starts this week. I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you about it. We just went and picked some mushrooms. We're doing an assignment on the toxicity of funghi. I washed my hands."

Thinking on my feet like that gave me an adrenalin rush. I would be in very serious trouble if he checked up on me, but as long as my report card only showed the first two letters of the alphabet and nothing beyond that, he wouldn't check, I was sure.

Back at school I told Edward I'd nearly been hung, drawn and quartered and chained to the bed leg and that I needed to know a lot about mushrooms, fast.

"They grow on trees and they're silvery-green," he said.

"You dweeb, that's lichen. You're going to get me killed. And then he's going to hunt _you_ down."

I couldn't believe my eyes, or ears, a few nights later when my window slid open and Edward climbed through it.

"Have you got a fucking _death wish_?" I stuttered at him, but my father would be at the station until after midnight, and as long as Ma Big Mouth didn't know he was here, Edward would survive.

"No, a Bella wish," he answered. "Look, since that time I got bitten by a radioactive ant I'm really good at climbing walls. Besides that, I have the stealth of a ninja. You didn't hear me coming, did you?"

"I heard something but I thought it was a herd of wildebeest."

Not knowing what to make of Edward wanting to be in my bedroom, I stood biting my lip as he looked around slowly at my stuff.

"What happened to you valuing privacy?" I managed, while he peered at the titles on my bookshelf.

"Only my own," he shrugged.

When he spotted Angela and Tanya in their usual place on my pillow, where they waited for my reflections on the day, he raised an eyebrow at me.

"I wouldn't have taken you for the doll type."

"It's not a doll, it's a piece of highly sensitive surveillance equipment and it's recording everything you say and transmitting it to Operations HQ, secretly located underground in Nevada."

I was still nonplussed as to why he was here and wondering what I was going to do about it, when he sat on the bed, back to the headboard, long legs stretched out in front of him and his feet crossed at the ankles. How on earth could he be so relaxed?

"Come and sit down," he said, patting the bed next to him.

"Weren't you ever told not to put your shoes on the furniture?" I grumbled, and his response to that was to kick his shoes off. I climbed gingerly to the middle of the bedspread and sat in a half-lotus.

"I wanted to talk to you about Hamlet," he began, which was the play we were slated to study next semester in English Lit. "I'm thinking of doing a rewrite of it, using Candide as a starting point. I want to make poor Hammy think everything happens for the best, and it's all good. I need a partner to help me cheer him up. We can submit it for our final assignment. What do you reckon?"

Was he kidding?

"I reckon you're bonkers, of course. I'll just make a quick phone call, and then someone will come and collect you."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. They'll call you _Mr_ Cullen, and take you somewhere very clean to live and every day you can line up and get colored candy in a little plastic container. You'll feel much better, and the voices in your head will stop."

"I'm crushed that you don't like my idea, but I have another one," he said, and with no forewarning other than that, he leant over and kissed me. Kissed me on the _mouth_.

I'd never been kissed on the mouth before.

There was just a gentle pressure from lips as soft as mine, and the lightest puff of a breath against my cheek as he exhaled and I barely had time for my eyelids to flutter closed before he pulled back and looked at me.

The kiss was a surprise, and maybe an invitation, and a question, and something that promised more, but the look was none of those. It wasn't like he was confirming the color of my irises, or checking for pupil dilation or anything anywhere near that prosaic. It was like he could see all the way through, all the way into me. There was an information superhighway between his eyes and mine and he was _reading_ me. It was two-way, and I was reading him too. It felt like a soul connection.

My mouth dropped open and I sat gaping at him and wishing he'd kiss me again. Surely he had to have known, but he swallowed and said, "Maybe I should go."

Maybe he should stay.

He seemed confused. "I didn't come over here intending to ravage you. I'm sorry."

He swung his legs to the side of the bed and found his shoes, pulling them on.

"And I sat on your doll. Sorry about that, too."

Angela and Tanya were absolutely goggling at him, embroidered eyes wide as they could be. Of course, they were always like that, but in this particular instance they really did look incredulous. He'd sat on their face.

It appeared he couldn't get out fast enough.

"You want to use the front door, Antman?" I asked with more sarcasm than poise, but he slipped through the window as easy and quiet on the way out as he had been on the way in, and I plopped back down on the bed to face my inquisitors.

Tanya had plenty to say. "Why didn't you didn't kiss him back, idiot?"

Angela thought it had all been perfectly sweet. "Well, he likes you."

I went back over every detail of how he'd looked and what he'd said, and his body language.

"He was on your _bed_. He even took his shoes off! You were supposed to_ go_ for him."

"It was romantic. He was testing the waters, because he didn't know how you were going to react."

The trouble with Angela and Tanya was that they couldn't offer anything other than what was already in my head. The trouble with me was that I didn't have anyone I was close enough to to ask what they thought.

The next day I took Angela and Tanya back downstairs because their contradictory opinions were making me a nervous wreck. When my Dad saw them there under the window, watching as we ate our breakfast, he ruffled my hair.

"Still got that old thing, huh? It's starting to look a little shabby now. I'm kinda glad you've kept it all these years, though."

Angela and Tanya would both be in a huff about what he'd said, but for now they were quiet and I had my cereal and cleared up after me and Dad, and got ready for school. It was Friday. I had gym and Edward had music, and we were only in the same class for one period - European History. We were usually required to listen to an hour's worth of lecturing, and make intelligent comments at the end of it. Our teacher would select students randomly to ask questions, and if you didn't come up with something relevant you'd be given a detention, on the grounds that you hadn't been paying attention. There would be no chance for Edward and I to talk, unless we had lunch together. Usually on Fridays however, he was off with the Athletics club training at lunchtime.

I sat with another classmate, Jessica, and tried to muster interest in the upcoming Sadie Hawkins dance.

"You hang around with the Cullens a lot, don't you?" she asked slyly. "Are you going to invite Jasper?"

"I hadn't given it any thought yet," I answered.

"He's damn cute, and he looks sort of - you know - like the kind of guy who'd be all polite in public, and then reveal a different side once you were on your own. You know, like he'd park somewhere dark on the way home and screw your brains out in the car."

"Jessica, I _really_ haven't thought about it. And now that you've mentioned it, I"m not _going_ to think about it," I said hastily. Was that what people thought of Jasper Cullen? On what grounds?

"Of course, you could ask the brother, Edward. He's so totally gorgeous. But it's such a waste. Everyone knows he's gay," she added.

I was shocked, but I tried not to show it. "Everyone who?" I asked coolly.

"Everyone who's seen him with his _boyfriend_, Seth Clearwater," she said triumphantly.

Act casual.

"Seth Clearwater? Who's that?"

"Oh, you lead such a sheltered life, Bella. He's a Quiluete kid from the Rez. He's only fifteen, so it's kind of hush-hush about him and Edward. Edward could go to jail if anyone found out. But I can't believe you didn't already know - you're around him such a lot. Haven't you ever suspected anything?"

I formed a new opinion of Jessica. I'd thought she was dim but harmless, however I'd just downgraded my assessment to thick as pigshit and utterly poisonous.

"Edward and Seth go out "training_" _together in the mornings. What they really do is go to the woods and have mad gayboy sex," she continued.

Enough was enough. I couldn't bear it.

"Well, Jessica, who were _you_ thinking of asking to the dance? It's only fair to let you know though that I heard there was a width restriction on the venue doorway and your ass might just be too wide for you to even get in," I snapped, gathering my things together and getting out of there as fast as I could.

And no, I had never suspected anything, and I'd never heard of Seth Clearwater, and gay guys don't climb in your bedroom window at night and kiss you.

Tanya thought that Edward might be of uncertain sexuality and had kissed a girl to see if he liked it. According to Tanya, odds were that he hadn't, since he'd failed to follow it up, and he'd practically thrown himself out of the window in his hurry to leave. Infinitely kinder, Angela thought the whole Seth Clearwater story was a beat-up by Jessica, who was probably jealous that Edward showed me any attention. After all, Jessica was a fat cow who was low on the popularity stakes and who was probably suffering from unrequited love of Edward, who had no interest in her.

"Because she has tits," Tanya suggested, evilly.

I had tits too, but one of Jessica's would equal four of mine. Or six. She had extreme tits.

I had to move Angela and Tanya upstairs again for this conversation. Charlie was going to start suspecting they were independently mobile. If he heard me talking to them he was going to start suspecting I needed the sort of hospitalization I had suggested to Edward. It's bad enough to attribute a personality to your doll, and then have conversations with it - but to give it split personality disorder and two names?

Edward didn't come calling in the night again, which Tanya claimed confirmed Jessica's gay allegation, and I didn't know how I made it through the next week. I didn't know to act with him, though I dutifully sat next to him in our shared classes. It seemed he noticed I was a little withdrawn.

"Is everything okay?" he asked on Tuesday, after I'd barely spoken to him all Monday. "You seem quiet."

"I'm paying attention, and I'm _thinking_," I answered. "I intend to pass everything this year, and with very high marks."

"You already get very high marks, and I've never noticed you _thinking_ before. You get high marks by spending entire lessons talking to me."

"I'm sorry to have to tell you you're wrong. I get high marks by going home and having to study all fineckin' night after having_ wasting_ entire lessons allowing you to distract me."

"Fineckin'? Is that in the urban dictionary or did you just neologize?" he asked, but he was hurt, I could see it.

At lunchtime I sat at Jessica's table, and watched him get his food. He hovered with his tray next to me momentarily, and when I resolutely ignored him he sighed and went and sat with his siblings. Watching him go I had absolutely no idea how my inner bitch could could have arisen with such force and taken over my personality.

Sitting with Jessica was boring beyond measure. She was so stupid she'd forgiven me for the ass remark, and she just went on about dresses for the dance, and about showing off her cleavage. It wasn't like she could possibly avoid showing off her cleavage - her tits were not only gravity-defying, they could barely be contained.

"Do you want to come to Port Angeles with me on Saturday to shop for dresses?" she asked, as if there was a dress in the state that could accommodate her over-endowments.

"Yeah, I guess," I answered, which was a lie. But I needed something to do on Saturday.

As she and I talked, Edward was at his table a few yards away, watching me and scowling. I couldn't avoid catching his eye every time I looked in his direction, and since he was just to one side of Jessica's shoulder, I seemd to catch his eye every two seconds. At one stage he poked his tongue out. I grimaced, and Jess turned around to see what I was looking at. He poked his tongue out at her as well.

"G. A. Y," she said to me, like it was a foregone conclusion.

And then Edward and I had history together.

"Since when did you become BFF's with Stanley?" he asked. "And what the fuck have I done to incur your ire like this? You've barely spoken to me for days."

"Nothing," I mumbled.

"Well, it was a whole fuckload of nothing then, not just a little bit," he responded, and was reprimanded sharply by Mr Garrett, who thought the world began and ended with the Peloponnesian war.

"I'm not finished with you," Edward warned under his breath.

After school, I was negotiating the parking lot in my truck when I spied Edward's volvo right behind me through the rear vision mirror. Instead of turning in the direction of his house, he followed me. Oh, great. If he stayed behind me all the way to the blue house the phone line would be running hot between Big Nose's place and Law Enforcement Central. Flicking my indicator on a couple of miles up the road, I headed along Highway 101, not actually having any idea of where I wanted to go. The volvo came right along after me.

Only ten miles out of town is the Sol Duc bridge. I kinda love it. It's not too pretty, it's not Golden Gate or Brooklyn or anything, but it's ours. I pulled over just before it, and waited. Wouldn't you know it? The volvo pulled over, too. Edward was at my passenger side door before I could blink.

"I've worked it out, Swan," he said as he got in. "I'm fucking mortified, and I'm seven kinds of sorry, and I know why you have the shits with me."

"Listen, Sparkles, I don't have the shits. I've been a bit scarce because I wanted a little girl time, okay? Some oestrogen, that's all."

His face was all grave and he faced me and hunched his shoulders and then dropped them back down, and he tightened his lips and then relaxed them again, and he clenched his jaw too. He was the very picture of nervous.

"Bella, I was a complete dickhead. I trespassed in your house - in your _bedroom_, which is even worse. It should be your safe place. And then to make matters worse still, I kissed you. I should never, ever have done that without asking you first. You didn't expect it, and obviously I've offended you. It was just a stupid impulse, and I won't do it again. Please don't stop being friends with me."

I could just imagine Angela and Tanya's response. Well, Tanya's anyway.

"He said it was a stupid impulse! That's because of his sexual orientation! He doesn't like kissing _girlmouth_! He wants to kiss _boymouth_! Bella, you are such a fool."

Angela wouldn't really be sure what to say. She was such a soft wussy optimist. "Don't jump to conclusions," would be about the best she'd have to offer.

I was silent for a while, considering a reply. Edward and I could go back to the way we had been, friends united in cynical sarcasm against the moronity of the pathetic world around us, we could blunder through working out new terms for whatever the hell our friendship was, or I could push him hard back against the door, kiss the bejesus out of him and see whether he kissed me back or threw me off.

Or I could say something stupid.

"Who's Seth Clearwater?"

"Huh?"

If I shut my eyes and wished hard enough, could I disappear? Had physics worked that shit out yet?

"What on earth are you talking about? Seth is a guy I know. What's he got to do with anything?"

"You tell me."

Oregon vortex, move north a bit and take me.

"Can we talk about the kissing?" he asked, clearly bewildered. He didn't know what train I was on.

"Let's not."

He let out a long sigh.

"Anyway, Edward, I've got to go. You may be able to spend hours driving around the county bridge-spotting but I've got a busy afternoon lined up," I said after a long and awkward silence.

"Oh?" he said, eying me.

"I'm defrosting the freezer. I have to sit in front of it and oversee the whole process."

"You're such a bitch."

He was right, but I wasn't going to just there and take it from him.

"You're a jerk!" I retaliated, although it wasn't true.

"Jesus, Swan, at least have the decency and guts to tell me what I've done that was so fucking wrong. Was it kissing you? You hated it, okay, I get that. I've apologized. Don't make me keep paying for it."

"You're sitting in my vehicle," I pointed out redundantly, because I couldn't think of a proper reply that didn't involve me confirming forever and always that I was a total dick.

_Edward, I really like you, and I thought maybe you liked me too, then somebody who is colossally witless planted a seed of doubt that you could possibly feel anything for me, and not only did it throw me off balance, I've let it flower into a mighty oak, insofar as its eating me from the inside out, and now I can barely manage to string sentences together when you're around. And you say you want to be friends?_

"When whoever has taken over your body decides to give it back and you return to your usual annoying but strangely endearing self, come find me, because I'll have been waiting all that time for Bella Swan," he said.

"Pardon me?" I stuttered, but he'd already gotten out, slamming the door behind him. Before I could react any further, the volvo was speeding away back towards town.

"He called me endearing! Tanya, you are _toast_," I muttered triumphantly as I drove home.

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This is a two-parter. Next bit soon.


	9. Chapter 9 Love's BLue Flowers pt 2

Characters owned by SM

Love's Blue Flowers - Part 2

Tanya really annoyed me with her insistence on Edward's gayness and her analysis of every little thing he said or did and how it all proved he was batting for the other team. I was ready to confront her with her crazy negativity and throw her out the window. And I was let down that Angela was so wishy-washy and not championing my cause. That's what confidants are supposed to do. They tell you exactly what you want to hear, never mind what the truth is, and they try and keep you buoyant, even if you're floating on a raft of denial in a sea of ugly facts. Probably human best friends would have been a better option than a bi-phrenic ragdoll in out-of-date clothes, but the pathetic fact was that my best human friend was Edward is-he-or-isn't-he? Cullen.

I let them both have it the second I got home. Tanya's humble opinion was that I should just come straight out with it and ask him.

"Endearing? He could say that to anybody. And gay guys like straight women who'll cover for them," she said, insidiously.

Angela thought tact and diplomacy would always win the day, and I should play it all by ear.

"Just wait. He'll show his hand sooner or later," she assured me. Useless really, the pair of them.

My state of confusion was still keeping me in a non-communicative bubble the next day when a message came through from Edward just after the bell that announced the end of lunch. I'd been in the library avoiding him.

The message said, "Dire extreme emergency. You have to help me."

"So what's up?" I enquired with feigned casualness, sliding onto the seat next to him in Chem.

"Oh, Bella, this Sadie Hawkins Torture Night. Jessica invited me. Jesus! I wouldn't go anywhere with her if her father offered me three camels and a yurt," he hissed, clearly perturbed.

"There are some really nice yurts around," I said, and he groaned.

"I turned her down, because she's a fucking camel herself. But Bella..."

He looked away, and I saw his jaw muscles move as though he was chewing on the inside of his cheek. He was normally so confident I wondered what could have made him this uncomfortable. Finally he turned back and swallowed hard.

"Bella, I told her I was going with you."

"Wha - ?"

He spoke quickly. "She is a fucking bull terrier, you know it. She wasn't going to let me get away with refusing her. I had to have a reason, so I told her I was already going. It won't be that bad! Just take me with you, and afterwards I'll owe you. I promise, I'll do anything. All your homework for a month. I'll give you money, I'll name a star after you, anything. Please."

"What if I've already asked someone?"

He paled.

"I'm dead," he said. "You haven't asked anyone have you?"

It was so tempting to tell him that I had, but I didn't have the heart to.

"No," I sighed. "I wasn't even planning to go. But I will, and you can come with me. Please dress decently. Don't eat any garlic beforehand. Don't expect me to dance to anything from the eighties."

"I agree to your terms. All of those conditions. Thank you."

He was so grateful I felt bad. Why should he give a shit about Jessica?

"And I promise I won't even think about trying to kiss you. I'll maintain a respectful distance between us at all times," he was adding. "Scouts' honor."

No kissing? Rethink!

"Oh, well, um," I said, quite uncertain as to how to proceed.

He quirked his head. "Um? Is there a caveat? Something else?"

"I-didn't-mind-you-kissing-me-I-was-just-surprised-is-all," I mumbled, running all my words together.

A sly grin appeared on his face. "I'm not sure I understood that but I think I might have. Did you just say - ?"

"Go away, now! I have a bunsen burner and I'm not afraid to use it."

Anyway, he turned up to collect me on the night, and Charlie shook his hand with a grip that made him wince. Edward staggered and dropped something, and it turned out he'd brought a little posy of the blue flowers from Mt Kilimanjaro. Charlie picked them up, his face impassive, and I took them upstairs, leaving them on my dresser. On my way back down I heard him warning Edward, "Eleven-thirty on the dot, son, or the FPD will be on your tail."

"Overkill, Dad," I muttered, teetering out the door. I'd actually worn heels. It was cool to be nearer Edward's height so that I could take the piss out of him from five foot seven instead of five foot four. I think he noticed the difference.

"Enjoying the oxygen enrichment, Swan?" he smirked.

The whole night was eighties music so I didn't have to dance which was just as well, considering the ridiculous shoes. After one incredulous glare in our direction, Jessica avoided us completely, and her tits spent the evening jiggling with her date, Mike Newton, whose eyes never wavered north. I forgot I had any issues or problems, and Edward and I carried on the way we used to, before it had all gone wobbly. We sat so close our knees touched, and we talked and talked. We vied for the title of King of Sarcasm, and ended up awarding it to each other.

"Do you think maybe we should grace the floor for the last song? This is a dance after all, and dance is a verb as well as a noun," Edward said to me at ten to eleven.

Traditionally the last song is a slow one, and people can get a little smoochy-smoochy if they're so inclined, although there's a very high likelihood of getting a tap on the shoulder from a teacher if any lip action is observed. Butterflies started kicking the hell out of my stomach as Edward led me away from the safety and dark of our seats into the middle of the floor. I wondered if he'd try for a kiss. I wondered if I would.

As it was, he slung his arms around my waist loosely, so that our bodies were barely touching. I put my hands uncertainly on his upper arms, because that seemed to be about as close as he wanted to get.

"It's okay, Bella, I don't have anything communicable. I've been out of quarantine for several days now," he murmured, noticing my hesitancy.

"It's not you, it's me," I responded. "I finished the antibiotics but I find I'm still having to expel quite a lot of mucus."

"You are fucking gross."

We were all kicked out at eleven and Edward drove me home. I was fervently hoping Mrs Big Mouth was an early-to-bed sort of person. I hoped she didn't have night-vision binoculars. I hoped she wasn't looking out of her fucking window, as Edward pulled up outside the blue house. He and I had fifteen minutes until my curfew, as set by Charlie, but of course if Charlie had heard the car pull up and if I wasn't inside within that fifteen minutes, he'd be out on the porch brandishing a firearm. A girl could get pregnant in in quarter of an hour. Twice, if the guy was quick enough. Charlie was not ready to be the grandfather of twins.

"I had a really great time tonight, Bella," Edward said softy. He turned the motor off, which I viewed as a positive sign. "Did you?"

"Yes."

"We had a really great time, didn't we?"

"Yes."

He shuffled, reaching for me and wriggling a little, and I wriggled too, reaching for him over the center console, wishing for the olden days when cars had bench seats instead of bucket seats in the front. I'd seen it in the movies - you didn't have to climb into the back to make out comfortably. And then his lips were against mine like a prayer, and I wasn't thinking about old movies. I opened my mouth and so did he, and I wondered if it was as experimental for him as it was for me. I hadn't really done this before. My lips felt dry and I wanted to moisten them, and I slid my tongue out without separating from him, and he groaned slightly as my tongue touched his lips as well. I nearly jumped out of my skin, but his arms were holding me securely. His tongue came out to mine, and I started to shake. I was getting so short of breath I was worried I was going to start gasping.

"Is this okay?" he asked anxiously when I pulled back from him panting and completely flustered. His breath was labored, too.

"You've probably got about two minutes to live," I told him. "Charlie."

"Jesus. He has his finger on the trigger already, doesn't he?"

Giving the tiniest shrug, he came for me again. This time I worked out how to breathe through my nose, and I just stopped thinking about it. I got lost, in the slipperiness inside his mouth and the sloppiness of our lips sliding together.

It was way too soon when he pulled back from me.

"What do I say now? I'll call you?" he asked, voice not quite right.

I bit my lip and held my breath for a second.

"Do you want to come in?" I said. "I mean, later, you could come to my room like you did that other time. You know, when you climbed through the window?"

His mouth was on mine again almost before I'd finished the sentence. One arm was around me, the other hand was at my cheek, and his lips were busy. We'd discovered a method of communicating that gave a whole new meaning to the term speaking in tongues.

But he pulled back again and said unevenly, "I'd better not."

Huh? He couldn't kiss me like this and say goodnight, could he? Fuck! But we both knew the clock was ticking. I tried to estimate how long we'd been parked there. Ten, at least... Dad would appear on the porch any second now.

"I have to go," I mumbled.

"Will you be at church on Sunday?" Edward asked, quickly. Charlie and I weren't churchgoers as a rule, but the minister was holding a party on Sunday night to "foster community spirit" or some such bullshit, and my father had grudgingly said we'd go. He reckoned it was a poorly disguised attempt at Christianizing those amongst the townsfolk who were wayless heathens, and I thought he was quite right.

"Yeah, we'll be there," I answered.

After a quick check in the rearview mirror to make sure I wasn't dishevelled, I opened my door and climbed out of the car, and Edward walked me up to my front door, which opened the second we stood in front of it.

"Bella, Edward," my father said curtly, with a nod. We weren't late, and he couldn't complain.

"Thanks for taking me tonight, Edward," I said politely, and Edward shook my hand and made his farewells to me and my father. I didn't have a hair out of place, and I could meet my father's questioning frown with confidence.

Up in my room it was a different story. I was giddy with pleasure, and possibilities. Edward's mouth was my favorite thing on earth.

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I know I said two parts but I'm making it three.


	10. Chapter 10 Love's Blue Flowers pt 3

All characters owned by SM. Someone else owns the story, though. Do you know who it is?

Love's Blue Flowers - Part 3

I was looking forward to Sunday so much I was like a mexican jumping bean. How long and boring can a Saturday be? I did lots of cleaning, I cooked things to put in the freezer, I sewed a couple of buttons on shirts for Charlie, I had a long bath, and I tried to read. Then, how long can a Sunday be? I'd already done everything there was to do on Saturday, so on Sunday I lay around in bed far too long, listening to music and still trying to read. Reading eluded me entirely - I'd get to the end of a line and not know what it had said.

Tanya couldn't expound any longer on her conviction with regard to Edward's sexuality. He and I had kissed, _properly_. Our tongues were now intimately acquainted.

"He didn't try any groping, though, did he?" she needled, but it was a desperate shot that went wide of the mark. Edward wasn't going to try any groping when there was an armed man a few yards away, guarding my virtue with bullets.

"He couldn't possibly kiss you like that if he likes boys," Angela assured me. "There's no need to worry about it any more. Jessica was just being a jealous trouble-maker, and you can forget the whole thing. You'll see him tonight. More kissing! Go you!"

Quite a few of the town's doomed turned up at the party, either to avert eternal damnation, or for the free food. We all milled about, munching on little sandwiches and sipping juice or soda, and made small talk with people we saw every day at the supermarket or on the street. I kept catching Edward's eye but whenever I tried to move in his direction someone would get in the way. Dad had found his mate Billy early on and the two of them were sitting in a corner, no doubt talking about baseball, and I was just itching to get out of there.

When I found my opportunity I took it. Edward glanced at me and then indicated the door with a gesture involving his eyebrows and a tilt of the head, and as soon as I could decently excuse myself from agreeing with the lady who ran the diner that I'd grown a lot since I was a little girl, I followed him outside.

I just wanted to kiss him and kiss him. Like, lots of times. Kissing him was a previously unknown world of pleasure and little eruptions, and worked unexpectedly as a dieting aid. I'd been barely able to eat since Friday night, not that I wanted to lose any weight.

We strolled along the graveyard wall, looking purposeless and nonchalant, or that's what I was aiming for. I was so excited that it took me a while to register that his hands were punched deep into his pockets, his shoulders stiff and his head down, eyebrows drawn in a worried frown. There was something wrong.

"What's up, Edward?" I said, putting a hand on his arm, and he leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh, finally looking at me.

"Friday night was good, wasn't it? You had fun?"

"Yes," I assured him. "Plenty of fun. At the stupid dance, talking to you all night was all I wanted to do, and then later, when we said goodnight... that was fun too." My voice faded shyly to a whisper at the end.

"Bella, I have to tell you something. I'm a bastard and a liar. Well, I wasn't lying, oh God, it's complicated, and I don't know how to say this or where to start, or anything."

He was visibly upset, and I was feeling concerned. What had he said that he'd been lying about? Or not lying?

He sighed, and he sniffed and rubbed the back of his hand over his nose, and he cleared his throat, and finally he raised his head and looked away, right through the tree that was on the grass verge in front of us.

"I asked you to ask me to the dance because of Jessica," he began.

"I know," I answered.

"Well, I wanted to go with you, believe me. I wanted everything that happened, _everything_, but the truth is, that when Jessica asked me first and I refused her she got really nasty. She said - she said that she knows I'm gay, and she knows who my boyfriend is, and she said she was going to tell everybody. I laughed in her face, and told her that I was already going, with a girl. With you."

My stomach felt like it had lead in it. Something about the way he was saying this wasn't right. I waited for the words that would refute Jessica's claim, and they didn't come.

"But she's just an idiot, isn't she, Edward? ... Edward?"

"Bella, I like you so much. _So much_. I can't even describe how much, and it almost scares me. I feel jittery when I think I'm not going to see you, and I feel so fucking glad when I look up in the car lot or classroom or lunchroom, and you're there. Right now I'm freaking because it's going to be vacation and I won't get to spend time with you five days a week. And on Friday night when I kissed you, it was beautiful. So beautiful. But... what Jessica said... I don't think she's right. She's not fucking right. It's just that... I don't know for sure that she's wrong."

"You're gay?" I managed to whisper. "You've got a boyfriend?"

He shook his head. "I don't have a boyfriend. I've never touched another guy, or kissed one. You're the only person I want to kiss. It's just that I have doubts. It's tearing me up. I have _thoughts_ about guys. I've never acted on them, but they're there, and I want them to go away, but they always come back."

"Seth Clearwater?" I asked, feeling devastated.

"_No_! Oh, fuck, Jessica already said something to you, didn't she? Seth is a fifteen year old kid! He's a nice guy, and he's a friend, and do I want to stick my hand down his pants? No, for Chrissake! Do I want to stick my hand down your pants? Sorry to be so crude, but yes, I do. I can't though. I can't do any of that stuff without being sure. It's not fair. I don't want to ever hurt you, Bella, and I see that I've already done it."

"But Friday?"

"I wanted us to have a date. A perfect date, with talking and laughing, and then making out. I thought about telling you then, but I wanted us to have had that one night. I thought about not telling you at all and waiting for it to sort itself out, but it's not going to. I need therapy or something. I don't want to be a fucking _queer_."

He was so bitter and angry with himself that right now his pain was hurting me more than his tortured confession.

"And you know what really, really sucks?" he asked. "I feel like the only person I can talk to about this is the person I'll most hurt. You. You're the closest person to me. I admire you and trust you and I'm telling you this shitty thing."

He was still glaring at the tree. "If I smoked I'd light one up right now. Fuck, I'd light up the whole fucking packet."

"Edward, um..." I started, inadequately. Did I know the right thing to say? Did I heck.

Then Edward smacked himself on the forehead, turning to me with a look of horror. "Oh, Jesus, I just realized something else. I'm such a dumbfuck. All this woe is me crap I'm putting on you... I'm just assuming that you like me too. I'm taking it for granted because you sit next to me and talk to me, and you let me kiss you outside your father's house - God my self-pitying ego is out of control! You might not even give a shit! If you didn't that would be a whole lot better for both of us. _Please_ tell me you don't like me!"

I was saved - or prevented - from having to reply because voices suddenly sounded from nowhere, and a bunch of people from school walked up to us.

"Swan and Cullen, eh? What are you two up to out here in the dark?" someone from the group said. It sounded like Mike Newton.

"We're plotting to overthrow the regime, and install a horse's ass as president," I said.

"We've got a hitlist, dumbheads, and you're all on it," Edward continued, and they scoffed and moved on.

Edward and I couldn't take up where we'd left off though, because my father's voice came from behind us, calling me.

"Shit," Edward groaned. "Can we talk about this more later? Are you even going to still talk to me?"

"I guess," I shrugged, reeling.

If Dad noticed I was quiet on the way home, he didn't comment. I was often quiet. He was on shift that night, and he got ready for work, then did his usual round of checking the doors and telling me to call him if I needed anyting.

Once I'd goodnight to him, and gone to my room though, I had to tell the cloth twins what had happened. If Tanya could have let out a long whistle she would have.

"That explains why he never made any moves! Ooohh yuck. He said he's never touched a guy. Did he mean, like, just with his hands? Where's his mouth been?"

Angela, of course, took a softer tack. "He says he's not sure about himself. He says he really likes you. If you just hang on in there, maybe he'll get over it. Everybody must have one or two gays thoughts, after all. Everyone must wonder about themselves. Mustn't they?"

"_I_ never have," Tanya asserted. "And you don't _get over_ being gay. Plenty of people have tried it, and they get married and live a lie for years and then they crack, and it turns out they've been going to those horrible clubs for years, where you stick your dick through a hole in a toilet door and someone on the other side sucks you off. And then your wife and kids find out and everybody dies of the heartbreak and the shame."

Edward said he had no-one talk to except me. Well who did I have? A doll. A fucking doll. What a joke. Some of the wool eyelashes were loose and hanging free so it looked like the dude from the Clockwork Orange poster, a seam had burst along one arm and stuffing had come out and I'd never even tried to fix it up, so there was one thin arm. There were all sorts of smudges from when I'd had the thing next to me at the meal table and gotten jam on it, or ketchup or who knows what, and I'd dabbed at it ineffectually because I had no mom around to tell me how to do that stuff, and Dad just shrugged regretfully. My therapist was a tatty, crappy doll in a grubby pinafore, and could only offer me insights that were inventions of my own brain.

"Why don't you run away? Leave all this behind and go to Renee? It's her turn, isn't it? It's not like you're going to stay here forever, anyway. What's here for you? Being the receptionist at the Police Station? 'Hello, Forks PD. There's a litter situation on North Avenue? I'll put out an APB. Thank you for your call. Hello, Forks PD. You think your neighbor may have stolen your tennis ball? That sounds like a matter for the Chief. I'll see to it that he gets straight down there'. I have seen the future, and your horizons are way low."

Yeah, right. I'm in my senior year of high school. A really good time to uproot myself and go cross-country. Tanya and her knee-jerk reactions. She didn't know how close she was to being chucked in the garbage. Shelf-life - approaching an end.

"Bella, just concentrate on school. That's what's important right now. It's a shame about Edward, but there's nothing to stop you two being friends."

And Angela, the most half-assed personality ever to inhabit an inanimate body. She lived in constant denial, with a rosy worldview that eveything would work out for the best, and you must never take any action, or assert yourself, or rock the boat, or want anything. The two of them were manifestations of myself that I wanted to shed. I wanted to find a me in the middle. Not wimpy, not over-reactive. A happy medium? Oh, please, Bella, make yourself medium and happy.

The sound of my window sliding open nearly gave me a heart attack, and Edward's graceful hands, followed by his long thin body came into view.

"What are you doing here?" I snapped. "Do you want me to show you my tits so you can see if you don't like them?"

"Christ, no!" he exclaimed, and I realized I was channeling Tanya. Calm down.

"I'm glad you're mad at me. It helps," he added. "And there's nothing I can say about your tits without confirming myself as a pervert and a loser."

I sighed, heavily. "Yeah, I'm mad because you feel bad about yourself. But I don't like you like that, you freak. You have dumb hair and dumb clothes, and your taste in music is _awful_, and you don't know your ass from your elbow. And I should add, you're a terrible kisser."

"Am I?" He sat on the edge of my bed. "Don't answer that. Look, tell me to bugger off if you want. I will. I'll get out of your face, and I'll stay out."

He looked around my room as he had done the last time he was here.

"I'll leave you to talk to your little friend," he added, seeing Angela and Tanya propped on the dresser.

My heart stopped.

"_What_?" I gasped. "_How long were you at the window_?"

He snorted. "Oh, I was hanging there by my fingernails for a good twenty minutes, and I was using my bionic cochlear implant to listen to you talking to yourself in the mirror... hey, you've gone a really interesting color. What's up?"

I was gulping like a fish, and fighting down the sudden waves of nausea and mortification that threatened to submerge me. He'd heard me talking to Angela and Tanya? After about thirty seconds, it occurred to me that not only did I not speak to them aloud, they didn't speak to me aloud either. I hadn't been caught. But I was still the most embarrassed I had ever been in my whole life, and I was still the color of a ripe tomato.

"Swan, let me get you an ice pack before you burst into flames. Are you having a fit? What's the matter?"

He was concerned now, and came up to me curiously. "Oh my god, you _were_ talking to yourself, weren't you? And you're worried that I heard you. Well, relax, I didn't. You've seen my biceps. I couldn't hang from anywhere for twenty seconds, never mind twenty minutes."

I grabbed the bottle of water I had on my dresser and took a sip. It went down the wrong way and I ended up spluttering, and some even came out of my nose, and I went pretty quickly from pathetic to disgusting.

"I _don't_ talk to myself, you twerp," I told him.

"Hey, whatever. You just went infra-red for no reason. Fine. But actually, I did hear your voice. Who've you got hiding up here? Is there a boy in your closet?"

He was evil. Striding across my room he flung open the closet dramatically, and of course books and papers and sweaters and socks fell out, but no boy.

"Fuck off," I hissed.

"Oh, this is getting better," he said. "Seriously. Tell me what's going on." He thought he was so brilliant. His gaze fell on Angela and Tanya again, and he held them up with a flourish.

"A-ha! You _said_ this was spying equipment! It has a microphone, doesn't it? You were sending back your latest report on the nefarious goings-on in the dark underbelly of Forks!"

I snatched them off him and huddled on my bed, ready to cry. Not only was the guy I had a crush on not sure of where his sexual preference lay, he was a pain in the ass and a jerk who was mocking me. My hair fell over my face and my shoulders shook as the tears came.

"Are you laughing?" he asked.

Then his voice came from much closer. He must have knelt on the floor. "Are you crying? Oh, Bella, I'm so sorry. What is it? Can I do anything? Should I leave?"

His hand was stroking my hair and his fingers tangled in the strands, accidently pulling some. I whimpered, and he was still whispering sorry to me as he climbed onto the bed too, and curled around me, leaving my hair well alone and stroking my arm. My heart was nearly breaking at his attempt to comfort me, and how sincere he was.

Tonight he'd told me a secret that must have been weighing heavily on him for a long time, maybe even years. It had taken a lot of courage, when he thought the telling of it might cost him his best friend. I had a secret that wasn't anywhere near as enormous, it was just little and silly, and wouldn't cost me anything, but it was still an offering.

"Edward," I mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"I know you didn't hear anything and I know you were just teasing, and you're a creep really, but can I tell you something?"

He was still.

"I talk to my doll. My dad gave it to me when my mom left, when I was just a little kid, and I got into the habit of talking to it every night when I went to bed. I told it everything. I told it how I wanted my mom to come back, but she'd gone because I wasn't a good girl, so it was my fault. Then I blamed my dad for not loving her enough. And then I expanded a bit and talked about school and things that were going on in my life. And then stuff I was thinking about, like death, or God or whatever. I've never really grown out of the habit. I've tried to - I've taken it downstairs so that it's not in my bedroom any more, because obviously I'm not going to talk to a _doll_ in front of my Dad, like I'm a crazy person. But then something will happen, and I'll bring it back up here because I need it. I've told it all about you. Everything, from months ago when we first started talking, to Friday night, and then tonight."

He sat up and reached a hand through the veil of my hair, finding my chin and tilting my face up to him.

"You know your mom didn't leave because of you, don't you?" he asked gently, searching my eyes.

"Yeah, I suppose," I answered.

He gave a brief smile and touched a finger to Tanya and Angela's blanched almond cheek. "So this little Raggedy Ann knows all about me?"

"Yep."

"You'd better introduce us then. What's her name?"

Uh oh. "Um, Tangela."

"_Tangela_? You win the prize for coming up with the worst name ever."

"Actually she has two names. Tanya and Angela."

"Tanya as a first name and Angela as a middle name? As in Tanya Angela Swan?"

"No. There are two distinct and separate identities living in the body of that doll. They each have their own name."

Edward let a loud breath out of his nose. "Two points I'd like to raise with you. One - you just said "living". Two - I don't really need to spell it out, do I? You can't give your doll two personalities. It's not normal. You should have just got another doll. And three - you are a total nutjob."

Yeah, well. Like I didn't know that already. Thanks _Freud_.

"Oh, and four?" he said.

There's a four?

"You're not a nutjob. I don't care if you've named your furniture and you pick up transmissions from outer space on your toothbrush, you're the sanest person I know. If it helps you to sort out your thoughts and feelings by giving voice to them, more power to you. Maybe I should try it. Can I borrow Tangela?"

"No you can't. Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

We sat in silence for a while, but it was fine. In a funny way, I felt unburdened. Tangela had been the recipient of my insecurities and ramblings for ten years, but in confessing her to someone else, I'd liberated myself. She had outlived her relevance.

"Hey, can we go for a drive?" I asked Edward suddenly, having reached a quick decision.

"It's eleven o'clock at night, Bella. What madness is this?"

It was madness, and got madder when I decided we'd both have to leave by the window, because if I went out the door the spyqueen down the road would surely know about it. Edward rolled his eyes at me and pulled silly faces, but he climbed down first and instructed me in a low voice, and we snuck to his car, tree by tree, snickering and laughing silently. I'd stuffed Tangela in a backpack as soon as his head had disappeared beyond the window frame, and before I slung my leg over it.

"Where to, milady?" he asked in a very bad English accent.

"Sol Duc bridge," I answered.

Clearly mystified, he drove out there without comment. We parked on the grass at the roadside, and wandered over to the bridge, leaning on the railings and looking down to where the dark water rushed beneath.

"Why have we come here, Bella?"

"It's a nice place. It's peaceful. It's green - well, it is in the daytime anyway. Did you ever send wishes downstream? So that when they reach the ocean they'll come true?" I asked him.

"No, but I like that idea. I might try it. Are you going to send a wish down now? What are you wishing for?"

"You know that thing that says "When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I grew up I put away childish things?"

"Yes, although I don't think you've quoted it exactly."

I took my Raggedy Ann out of the back pack and held her in front of me. "I'm letting go of Tanya and Angela. I'm setting them free. My wish is that I won't have to rush home to a toy to confess all my worries to. I'm not going to be that Bella any more."

Edward put a hand on my arm.

"It's a bit drastic to throw them away, isn't it? They've been a comfort to you."

"Yeah, exactly. They hold all my sorrow."

I could only just see him shaking his head in the dark. "It's not only that though, surely. You've told them loads of good stuff, too, haven't you? Things you were excited or happy about - dreams, hopes?"

"Yeah, well _you_ for instance, but hey, let's not dwell on that."

I tried to raise the arm holding them, but Edward held it. "Please Bella, don't do it. You could regret this. Give them to me, and I'll keep them until you want them back. They've meant a lot to you and they've seen you through all sorts of things... Do they remind you of bad stuff? I'll put them somewhere safe, and you can talk to me instead."

"You're part of it! If I get rid of them, things will get fixed!" I started to yell. I don't know when it became all about me. I don't know when his struggle with his sexuality became the catalyst for me cutting loose the safety net of an inert listener with a fixed expression, I don't know what skew-wiff system of illogical thought prompted that comment, but I wrenched my arm away and tossed the sacrifical doll over the rail. It hung momentarily, a black angel, before plunging into the waters.

"God, Bella,_ God_, why did you do that? You let me in, you told me something so deep and close and personal and real, and that doll contained a part of you, and you chucked it in the fucking river?"

"It was a wish," I answered. It was my wish that Edward would be my boyfriend, with no reservations on his part. I'd told the girls that, and now I was sending them to sea.

Edward slumped beside me, his back to the railings. He was upset, but although I'd told him part of my secret, I couldn't tell him the whole thing, the real wish. I wasn't that brave.

We got back to his car and he leaned against the door, saying, "What a night. What a fucking night," and to my horror he started to cry. At first it was a sniffle, but then he put his face in his hands and started to really sob, with his shoulders heaving.

"Oh, Edward - please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said, desparately, reaching to pat his shoulder, although I didn't dare hug him. He ignored me and I fumbled for something, anything, to alleviate his anguish.

"Is it the doll? Is it what I did? It'll be okay - I just outgrew it, that's all. Maybe someone will find it, and they'll give it to another little girl, and she'll love it and... Is it not the doll? Is it me? Is it what I said to you? It was just stupid and I didn't mean it, and just forget it. Is this about what you've said to me? It's all okay, that stuff, honestly, it's okay. I don't care, you're my best friend, nothing's going to change that..."

He dropped his hands. "I don't want to be your best friend, Bella," he said. "Don't you get that? I do not want to be your fucking _friend_. And you just threw your best friend off a bridge. This is so messed up."

He was damn right it was messed up, it was awful. We were out in the middle of nowhere, Edward was falling apart, I felt like I should give him some space, but it wasn't like I could walk home. And I didn't really want to leave him alone in the state he was in, anyway.

And what did he want from me? He'd just said he didn't want to be my friend. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the rest of school without him to confide in, and snark with and compete with. God, when I'd withdrawn from him and tried to get by without his constant presence I felt like I'd cut off a limb. I'd only functioned on half-power, or something.

"Shall I drive us back?" I whispered. "Do you need to be - away from me? I'll take us to my place, and you can go home, and then, I don't know, at school we'll sit apart and stuff, or I can say I'm sick and not come to classes so I'm out of your way... Maybe we just need a little break..."

It was killing me to say it, but I had to make the offer.

"Jesus, Bella, how fucking dumb are you?" he suddenly roared at me. "You are so fucking far off understanding this for a bright girl..."

I stood there, stunned, and he continued to rant.

"I like you. I _want_ you. I think I even need you. I also think I'm a fucking sexual deviant - so if we got together I couldn't be all you need and all you deserve. I'd let you down. All this was bearable, _just_, if you were indifferent to me, and didn't want me the same way. What you said earlier tonight was such a relief. I wanted to hear "Edward, you ugly motherfucker, piss off and don't bother me with your wasted romantic attention". But this business with the doll - with your wish... Is _this_ what you want?"

Out of the blue, he grabbed me. He took me so forcefully by the arms that it hurt, and he kissed me hard. I could taste his tears, and I could feel his teeth. The pressure of his mouth was forcing my head back and one of his hands came up to the back of my head, imprisoning me, the other moving around my back. I tried to push him away but he was against the car, and I couldn't move him. I tried to pull away, but those skinny arms of his had strength I'd never suspected. I even tried to yell against his mouth but I couldn't get a big enough breath through my nose to do it.

All I could manage was whimpering and grunting, until I had the idea of kneeing him in the family jewels. As soon as I shifted my balance he realized what I was doing, and he turned his hip so that my knee only connected with his thigh. It couldn't have actually hurt him, but it was enough to stop him.

Only he didn't stop. He changed his approach. He dropped his hands completely and softened his mouth, giving me the opportunity to finish this whole messy assault. If I just stepped away it would be over, and I could smack him for doing it to me. But I didn't want it to be over. I didn't like him being so rough with me, at least not without warning, but now his mouth was coaxing and gentle and we'd been there before, in this place of tenderness. My lips opened willingly, my tongue sought his and I pushed all thought out of my mind, inhabiting the moment. My hands found themselves in his hair. I teetered forward, as I'd come up onto tiptoes to meet him halfway in this kiss. Chest to chest, we kept going, as if this was all there was in the world, this communion between our mouths.

Then his hands came up to my waist, and I shifted position to get closer, and there was something else. He was aroused, I felt it. He tried to hold my hips to keep me removed from his, but he couldn't go anywhere with the car behind him, and I was off-balance. Without my intending it to happen, I fell into him. He was fighting an inner war and I was aware of it making him hesitate, but then with a groan his hands moved down to my backside. The kiss changed, gaining a dimension it hadn't had before. It became charged with a new energy.

"Get in the back seat," he said hoarsely, and I gladly obeyed. I climbed in there on my hands and knees and turned around as he followed me in. My legs were splayed with one foot on the seat, one on the floor, and Edward between them, heavy on top of me and staring down in the dark interior as we pushed our hips together. Oh, God. This was real. This was the realest thing that had ever happened.

Our hands became involved then as he reached up under my shirt and found my breast. Not content with touching, he impatiently pulled my t-shirt up to my neck, exposing my chest to him and nuzzled me through my bra. I felt the tightening and contraction of my nipple as his lips opened over it, taking it into his hungry mouth. At the same time his hand slid down the outside of my thigh to my knee, then back up the inside. He found where the seams of my jeans intersected, and pressed his palm against the spot before shaking his head.

"Got to get these off, I can't feel you."

It was all kinds of difficult, snatching kisses while wriggling out of clothes, me licking at his chest and running my fingers down his backbone, him with his hands on my naked breasts, then one on my hip, one between my legs.

We were both panting and gasping with the exertion of trying to find positions in a cramped space, and with the overwhelming desire to get closer. To get _connected_.

It hurt when he pushed into me, but I stifled my cry. He didn't stifle his though, he let it go, loud and rapturous, out over the rushing river and the quiet forest. He was calling out to god and to me as he moved inside me and it burned and I wondered how he could be so oblivious while I lay there tense and stinging, wondering whether to ask him to stop. After what could only have been a couple of minutes though, he stopped of his own accord and pulled out.

"You feel so fucking amazing - you're so warm in there and it's so - I can't describe it, it's pure heaven," he mumbled. "If I keep going like this it'll be all over before I've had a chance to - "

He knelt down on the floor in between the front and back seats, right in front of my parted legs.

"I want to make you feel good too, Bella," he said, and dipped his head.

God, if his tongue felt good on my breasts, _this_ was incredible. I was a little sore, but he wasn't licking me where the soreness was. He was patient and gentle and he made me feel good all right. I came shaking and almost crying, seeing patterns dancing on the insides of my eyelids, my fingers bent into claws, gripping the upholstery.

Edward kissed his way back up my body, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand before kissing my lips.

"You are the most beautiful, wonderful creature in the world," he smiled, collapsing half on me, half off.

"Don't you want to - um, keep going?" I said hesitantly.

"Can't. Too late. I came when you did," he whispered, pushing his arms underneath me to gather me into a hug. "I shot my load all over the carpet. I fucking love you."

I didn't want to say it back in case it was the wrong thing, but I did want to say it because now, with the discomfort having abated, I felt so blissful and complete.

"I love you, too," I whispered into his hair and he squeezed me.

"So you should, after that."

We slowly put ourselves back together and got out of the back seat. It took a while to get back in to the car because we couldn't stop holding each other and kissing. He drove to the blue house with one hand on the wheel and one hand stroking my leg and squeezing my knee and playing with my hair, and I had a hand all over him too, never mind how unsafe it was to distract a driver like that. On approach he turned his lights off and parked back down the road a bit, so that we could sneak up like burglars.

This time Edward didn't have to climb the tree as I had the key to the back door with me.

"Are you coming upstairs?" I asked hopefully, when he hesitated in the kitchen. "My dad won't be home until morning."

I wanted to get him to my bed, or any flat surface really, and find out a bit more about the mystery of sex. I hadn't even seen or touched his dick! I wanted to lick it. I wanted to wrap my arms and legs around him and I wanted to feel his bare skin against me.

But he didn't come any further in than the door frame.

"I should get home," he said, and his whole demeanor seemed to be changing. There was an air of reluctance about him.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as he simply closed up and shut himself off right before my eyes.

"We shouldn't have done that. _I_ shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have been inside you without protection for a start, and with the way things are..."

"Yeah, that was dumb of us, but you didn't come inside me, and... it was fantastic and amazing, and it's changed things, hasn't it?" I said, with a growing dread, because he was looking worse and worse. He almost looked as though he was going to be sick.

"You said you love me," I reminded him.

"I know, and I do. But Bella, I can't promise you anything. _Anything_. I just can't," he said, almost as though he was pleading, and he turned away, lurching into the night.

I stumbled to a chair and sat watching the emptiness that he had disappeared into, the emptiness that was right now creeping inside, over the floor and over to me. What had just happened? Hadn't everything just got easier, and clearer? We'd made love, and it had been messy and a little challenging and we'd had to be creative - was he disappointed? It hadn't been something out of a romance novel, admittedly. He'd ejaculated on the floor of his car, and now he'd have to clean the carpet - was that why he was upset? I didn't know anything. Or was it because we hadn't taken precautions? Maybe he was pissed off at himself for not being responsible. Maybe it was because he'd pulled out and we hadn't really had proper sex. I hoped it was that, because as far as I was concerned we could do it again and again, over and over, with condoms and he could come inside me as often as he liked.

There was another possibility. Tanya would have had a theory, I could almost hear her in my mind.

"_He didn't like it_."

I couldn't face the thought.

I dragged myself upstairs and I didn't shower because I didn't want to wash him off me. I didn't undress because I wanted to be wearing the clothes he'd touched. Just before I fell asleep I was in a writhing frenzy on my sheets, remembering his tongue on me, but I wouldn't touch myself there, because tonight that part of me was his alone.

And I refused to entertain the other possibility.

"_He'd rather have had a guy_."

Edward didn't show up at school in the morning. I struggled through the day, wondering why he couldn't face me, and I debated whether or not to drive out to his place and confront him. I was also scared that maybe he hadn't even gotten home. We'd been through a hell of a rollercoaster - crying, fucking, loving, laughing, and then the awful way he'd left, without even saying goodbye. He hadn't been in a particularly good frame of mind for driving.

But maybe he'd just taken a day off to - what? Have a day off. Maybe.

He didn't come to school on Tuesday either.

I worried all day, and when I got home I busied myself baking. I thought Dad would have been home, since he was on night shifts all week, but he wasn't there and I hadn't heard from him. Probably he'd show up for dinner before he went to work, and I wanted to make sure there was plenty for him to eat. I baked so much there was enough to feed the whole station staff and the fire department as well.

By seven I'd cooked everything in the house and he still wasn't back. When the phone finally rang it startled me, I'd been sitting quietly staring at the wall for so long.

"Be there in ten, babe," was all he said.

I served up a big helping of ground beef pie with a potato mash top, and plenty of peas and carrots on the side. Since I hadn't even managed to peck at anything for lunch I had given myself a spoonful of pie too, though considerably smaller than his.

He walked in, already in his uniform and sat down.

"Looks real nice, Bella," he said approvingly, and he picked up his fork and attacked the pie with relish. I discovered I was hungrier than I expected, and I ate too. So there was our whole family, sitting around the meal table, quiet as anything.

It was bound to be a total contrast to what was happening at Edward's house right now. Was Emmett being loud and rude? Was Alice kicking Edward under the table? Were their parents trying to maintain order or were they just grimacing at their unruly offspring? It could be that Mr and Mrs Cullen fully embraced the family circus carry on and sat at opposite ends of the table laughing.

"I'm leaving straight after dinner, honey. Something came up today," Charlie remarked, breaking the silence. "Edward Cullen's parents reported him missing yesterday."

My fork clattered to the table, landing on the edge, and fell noisily to the floor.

"Seems he never came home Sunday night after that shindig at the church. Some peas, Bella?"

He pushed the bowl towards me but I sat there like a statue.

"This afternoon he was found down river a-ways. His car was back at the Sol Duc bridge. Looks like he must have jumped."

I felt as though I'd been hit by a steam train. Voice shaking, I asked, "Is he all right? Is he in the hospital?"

Dad shook his head. "No, Bella. He's in the morgue."

And that was when I lost interest in everything. Every single damn thing.

I shut down, the way Edward had shut down on Sunday night. I cleared the table, said goodbye to Charlie as he left for his shift, washed up the dishes, and pulled out my homework. Shutting down was the only way I was going to live through this. Being a zombie was all I could be. Amongst the complexity of what I'd felt when I threw Angela and Tanya into the river had been a wish for peace for Edward. A selfish wish, because the peace I wanted him to find was that he was fully heterosexual and that he wanted me and felt no conflict. What had been going through his mind? I'd never, never, never know.

Days drifted by me and I didn't notice them.

His whole family were at the funeral, of course. His parents were gaunt and wasted, like they'd been crying for days. His siblings looked shocked out of their minds. I even saw a young guy there who I guessed was Seth Clearwater, biting his lip but failing to stop its trembling, and with tears pouring freely down his cheeks. The only expressionless person there was me.

The minster gave a stupid talk about Edward being a promising young man who had been beset by a tragic accident. But it's not exactly an accident when you get up on the railings of a bridge thirty feet above a fucking fast-flowing, rock-filled river and then jump the fuck off them though, is it?

"Did you make a wish, Edward?" I whispered, as the coffin was being lowered, and his parents dropped the first shovelful of soil on it. "Did you _get_ your wish, you _fucker_?"

I hated him too much to ever forgive him.

Back at school, whispers surrounded me in class, and everywhere I went. Lies, rumors, and speculation.

"He was her boyfriend, and she got pregnant. That's why he did it. She lost the baby anyway."

"Did you see them at the Sadie Hawkins dance? They were practically boning each other on the dance floor."

"I saw them outside that night. She was sucking him off in the graveyard."

And Jessica fucking Stanley. That grade A bitch from the darkest pit of hell. "Oh, no, Bella was never Edward's girlfriend. She just _wanted_ to be. Edward was - "

I punched her and broke her fucking nose. I was aiming to punch it right off her fat face, so I failed in my intention, but breaking it sure gave me some satisfaction.

They called the police - funnily enough, my Dad - and I was suspended, but Jessica didn't press charges.

That was last summer. School finished. I flunked. Since my grades had been so good prior to my final exams the principal applied for some kind of special dispensation for me. My exam marks were adjusted to what my teachers thought I would have scored if I hadn't suffered a bereavement. And the subsequent breakdown.

And with Edward gone I didn't know what to do with myself so I didn't do anything. I sat in my room and composed endless letters in my head, as though I had somewhere to send them. The little dried bunch of blue flowers was all I had, along with the weight of sorrow. I suffered nightmares and woke screaming, and Dad would come in and sit with me until I went back to sleep.

Sometimes I dreamed Edward had come back inside with me that night, instead of going to the Sol Duc. Sometimes I dreamed he turned up back at school again, or he climbed in my window. Sometimes I dreamed he was with Seth Clearwater, and I didn't fucking give a damn, as long as it meant he was still alive.

And this summer, I got a job. A job working the till at a shop, not the sort of thing someone with my marks and prospects was expected to do. So what?

And sometimes on Saturdays, only fine ones, I take a walk up Mt Kilimanjaro to Edward's meadow. The flowers are only there for a few weeks of the year. I pick four, and then I get in my truck and drive down to Sol Duc. I don't care what the flowers really are, to me they're forget-me-nots.

They're also wishes. I throw in two together for Angela and Tanya, because somewhere down there is where they are. Then I throw in another two -

one for me, and one for him.

.

.

.


	11. Chapter 11 Witch They Called Me

_I have to admit I'm conflicted about this one because it is really taking liberties. I hope it doesn't offend anyone._

**Retelling Tales**

**Witch They Called Me**

Witch they called me, but Witch I was not.

Mad, raving, touched, hysteric, heretic - all these, all these and more I was called, but the worst of the accusations was Witch, because all those other labels, or call them diagnoses, if determined to be accurate, attract Treatment.

If it is found that a person is a Witch, there will be Penalty.

Since madness is caused by stones in the head, Treatment can involve a scalpel to the forehead in order to excise the stone causing the affliction. Treatment can be confinement, Treatment can be forced embarkation in the company of a shipload of other deranged individuals, all with a destination of nowhere.

But Penalty is death.

When the voice first came to me in the night, warning me of an upcoming war, I was young and fanciful, and not yet about to worry for my life, despite the content of its utterances.

"There is an army on its way, and you, Isabella, are the ony one who can stop it," the voice told me.

My eyes sought its owner in the absolute black of my chamber but there was nothing to be seen.

"Who are you? Is this a dream? Why have you come to me?"

"I have come to you because you have a gift - you alone can defend your people against what will happen. The horde is powerful, it is inexorable, it will leave nothing alive in its path, and without your leadership everybody in this town will perish," the voice said.

"When will it come?"

"Even now it is being assembled, but the organization and training will take some time. The leaders are recruiting, and they seek only the most vicious, the most merciless, the most remorseless of soldiers. In maybe a year, maybe two they will come."

"You are frightening me, and I don't believe that this can be true. We are a small town and there is nothing of value here - no gold, nor metals, nor precious stones. We have only timber and water. Why would an army invade us? What could they want?"

"You."

Over the months I began to lose sleep as the voice came to me night after night. If the voice belonged to an actual entity, and spoke the truth - there was grave trouble ahead. If the voice was a conjurance of my own mind, I was insane, and would have to hide the fact, or face the consequences. So I told no-one, keeping my fears to myself and suffering alone through the long days, awaiting the darkness when my tormentor would revisit.

"You must stop coming. You must leave me alone."

"I cannot. I am impelled to your side - you are the one, the only one with the power to defend your people."

"Who are you? Reveal yourself!"

Every night I implored him, and I lit candles but the indistinct shape of him shrank back into shadows, and even slipped silently through my window when I attempted to approach him. One night, however, he didn't. He stood resolute and unflinching in the golden glow from the candle, and I drew near him, holding my little candlestick and raising it as I realized how tall he was.

An angel's face looked down at me, beautiful and perfect.

"Have I died?" I asked him, and his solemn expression became one of concern.

"No, but why do you ask me such a thing?" he said.

"I am surely in some sort of purgatory, and I don't know what I have done to earn this. You look like a being from heaven, yet the things you say to me could only come from the devil's mouth - your tales of murder and carnage and rampage. Am I being tested, to determine my worth for the afterlife?"

"You are worth the afterlife without testing. You are strong and pure and honest and brave and there is no question of your goodness and your deservedness. No, that is not why I am here," he answered, and his face bore sorrow now, deep and affecting.

"Why are you here?"

"Because this legion will come, and you must stand against them. You will not be alone, as I have a small but very fierce company of fighters, and we will attend you in the defense of your people. We cannot drive this enemy off, as they will never give up in their goal, we must kill them all."

I sank to my bed, knees trembling as they always were when he began his talks. My hands trembled to, and the unsteady candlelight flickered even more.

"My father - he is in the constabulary. He can send word to surrounding villages and summon aid..." I began.

"Isabelle," the angel murmured. My name on his lips stirred unfamiliar feelings within my breast. "Isabelle, you know the times you live in. You know what is said of those who make wild claims, who speak of events yet to happen. If you mention this to anyone you will garner the suspicion of small-minded ignorants, and if you persist you will face persecution. You can only talk of this with me, and I will help you plan, and when the time comes I will be at your side, and we will face this terrible enemy together."

"Who is this enemy?"

"They are evil incarnate. They feed on the living and they will wreak devastation upon the population - male, female, young and old."

"How do you know these things?" I cried despairingly.

"I will explain soon. I will tell you everything. Please Isabella, trust me, and be as strong as I know you are."

Daily I went about my life, which was housekeeping for my father, and nightly my visitor came. The initial reason for his contact with me, which was to warn me of the impending war, was never entirely omitted from the evening's discourse. He told me many tales of heroes and champions, of victories won despite seemingly insurmountable odds. I was familiar with David and Goliath - he taught me of Mulan, a girl who disguised herself as a man and joined a great army, and of Spartacus, a slave who proved to be a great tactician and warrior who led a rebellion against the Roman Empire.

I grew greatly in knowledge, but had to hide that knowledge within me, as to speak of the things I had learnt would arouse mistrust.

For a year the nocturnal visitations continued, the low murmuring, the angel's face and form, so beautiful in the night of my room. He never touched me, indeed, I wasn't sure whether or not his form was even solid. He could have been as insubstantial as the air he seemed to glide through with a swiftness and ease that awed me.

"Are you from God?" I had asked him, increasing the fervency of my prayers lest I should be found unadoring and insufficient in my worship, but he insisted he was not.

"My name is Edouard. I am neither God nor angel, nor spirit, nor quite man," he had replied, with an incompletion of facts that was not enough answer.

"Are you real?" I whispered. "Are you ether or matter?"

"I am matter, just as you are," he answered, his angel face grave. Although he was sitting next to me on my narrow bed, I had long ago dismissed thoughts that he intended any impropriety. If my father, or anyone else had known I entertained a man nightly in my chamber, with barely a distance of inches between me and him, a choice assortment of names and their accompanying accusations would have been leveled at me, but I had maintained a silence all this time and no-one knew of him.

"Material, corporeal, tangible. Take my hand," his voice said.

He extended a hand, and I did too, but before my fingers could make contact, he issued a warning.

"Isabelle, I am cold."

I touched him, and it was true. I enclosed his hand fully in mine, and there was no warmth in it. He was as someone dead, lifeless, without the heat of blood.

"How can this be? Why are you like this?" I asked.

With a sigh, he took his hand from mine and ran it through his hair.

"Sooner or later, I had to tell you this, and I am glad it is later and you have had the chance to know me a little, and trust me, I hope. I mean you no harm - you must believe me. If I had any malicious intent, it would have been evident by now. Isabelle, I was once as you are, but I underwent a change, and now I am something different - I am Other. I am ageless and sleepless, I cannot suffer ailments or afflictions, and I am immortal."

He had told me many things, strange and wonderful and hard to give credence to, but this was the strangest.

"I do not have a beating heart, nor any breath," he continued, and raised my hand to his chest. Holding my palm flat against his breast he watched, and waited as my hand rested there for two or three minutes. Truthfully, there was no movement, either of the surface to indicate breathing, or below the surface, where I should have felt the regular and gentle throb of his heart.

I had asked many times what he was, and he had never told me. "What are you?" I asked again, and this time he had an answer.

"My kind has not been named. The creatures that will come here are just such as me, but I am not malevolent towards mankind as they are. I seek to lead a peaceful life, they seek to invade and oppress and ultimately destroy. You need not be afraid of me, Isabelle, and you need not be afraid of them, for I will be with you. I am preternaturally strong - "

For the first time ever, I interrupted him.

"You have said you are immortal, and you have said this enemy is just such as you. How is an immortal foe to be defeated?" I asked, with growing unease.

"Decapitation or fire," he answered.

"You would have me face an unnatural army, each of them stronger than ten men, and I must carry a sword in one hand and a flaming torch in the other? I am just a girl!" I cried, dread imbuing every word, a shuddering setting in to my limbs and my heart beginning a clamor of fright and denial.

"I am sorry, but yes," he said, and he could not have looked more sorrowful. "As I told you, I am assembling a force of fighters, and we have made an alliance with another group of warriors who for centuries have been our sworn rivals and together we will be an opposing army. You do not yet know of your extraordinary power as you are untried, but you will be vital to the salvation of your people."

I shook my head. "You are mistaken. Go now, and leave me, and do not return. I do not believe in your unnatural creatures, and your war, and I have no power. Henceforth I will lock my window against you."

"Isabelle, if you forbid me entry I will not disobey you. But I will always be close, and I will hear you if you ever call for me. Any time you say my name, I will come to you. And doubt it not, the events I have foretold will come to pass."

As quietly as ever, he passed though my window, leaving me shocked and upset, more disturbed than I had ever been by his predictions and dire claims. I should have reported him to the authorities from the very outset, as breaking into a house in the middle of the night is punishable by imprisonment. He would not have been able to bother me further had he been in a cell.

Somewhere in my mind though, or perhaps in my heart, I believed him.

Somehow, I knew the iniquity he spoke of was a reality, and it was approaching.

It was only a day later when my father told me news had come from a nearby village that there had been some sort of animal attack, and the victim, though armed and an experienced hunter, was dead.

"Wolves," my fatherr muttered, as it was well known that wolves hunted in packs, and were capable of strategizing - employing manoeuvres that were almost human in their cleverness and calculation to bring down prey.

"Wolves," I nodded. "Were they seen?"

"No." My father spoke grimly. "But they were clearly rabid. The body was only identifiable by the scraps of clothing found nearby. These animals are extremely dangerous."

He told me of a plan to gather some men of the town together and look for the wolves' resting place. During the day, the beasts would be lethargic, as they answered the devil's call at night with their howling.

"Sir, will you take care? I am fearful this day, as deer and rabbit have been so plentiful this past summer that predators have no need of killing humans."

"Isabelle, we are seasoned men all, and wolves are but dogs. We will have sticks and knives, and we will shout at them and drive them off. They must find new territory elsewhere, and this problem will be over by nightfall," he assured me.

By late afternoon none of the men had returned, and their wives had come to my door. They crowded there, with an air of alarm and urgency, all of them, and they pushed one among them forward, urging her to speak.

"Mistress," she began, voice shaking. "I sent my son to the hill at the town fringes to see if he could espy the men on their way home, and he returned sweating and crying, having run all the way back to me. He said he heard terrible noises - shouting and even screaming, as though something horrifying were happening in the trees. We must all barricade ourselves inside our houses, and we must all pray for deliverance from the wild animals."

"God is displeased with us. We are sinful, and unrepentant. We do not give thanks, we do not make offerings," another voice wailed, and soon all the women were moaning.

"Our menfolk are being mauled out there by monsters sent from the devil, and we must pray."

"We have not been abstemious. We are guilty of gluttony and sloth, we have been venal..."

Sounds of great anguish rent the air, and some women began to beat their breasts.

"Stop!" I shouted, into the melee of panic. The women began to hush one another, and eyes turned to me. Before I could speak, a group of adolescents came running through the street, charging to my house.

"We have been on the hill and we have seen something dreadful. A tribe of - warriors advances," the first of them panted, with terror in every outline of his body. "They are several dozen in number. They walked straight out of the river. Their clothes are covered in blood, and blood drips from their mouths. They are attired in black and they are all deathly pale, and their eyes are _red_. Their leader carries the head of the fisherman who left this morning to track wolves."

The women began crying again.

"Everyone, listen to me!" I ordered. "Where are your children? We only have a matter of minutes! You, and you - " I began pointing, dividing the women into groups. "Gather all the children, assemble everyone under the age of seventeen behind the inn. You, Jakob - you are the son of the council leader. I charge you with the safety of the children. Find all the horses you can, and with your friends, use the horses to take the children away. Everyone else - return to your homes and get axes or long knives, and firebrands. We will meet this enemy with fire and blades. I will wait for you on the the north side boundary, nearest the river. We must try and hold them off to give Jakob and the children the best chance of escape. Go NOW!"

The group scattered, and I stood for an instant, waiting until no-one was in earshot.

"Edouard. _Edouard_," I said.

He was at my side.

"Already, you are magnificent in your courage," he breathed to me.

"You said you would bring others with you to fight in this battle," I reminded him, as he took my hand. "Where are they? And how many?"

"They are here. They are around us, keeping themselves concealed until the fighting starts. Some of them are of startling appearance, and we will have to explain to your people," he answered smoothly, and with no warning he had picked me up as though I were light as a cat, and somehow gotten me onto his back. I clung to him as he ran, and I had never known man nor beast to be so swift. Within moments we were at the town's periphery, and I could see the invaders then, walking up the hill. They were unearthly, as unearthly as Edouard was, but while his face had shown countless expressions to me over this past year, theirs showed none. Their countenances were fixed in grimness and they looked neither to left or right, simply coming onwards and upwards.

People from the town began to gather around us, murmuring prayers. Catching sight of Edouard, their agitation grew.

"Isabelle, you must warn your people that there will be wolves fighting today, on the side of right," Edouard muttered urgently, never taking his eyes from the approaching attackers. "They are humans who take wolf forms, and they will not hurt fellow humans."

How did I go from being a girl who swept a house, and laundered clothes and sheets and tended a garden to being a leader of a small army, defending home and lands against a band of soldiers intent on feasting on my fellows? I could not know if what Edouard said about these creatures was true, but I did not want to hesitate and risk the lives of those he told me I could defend.

Even as I pondered on the words that would inspire and assure the people who were facing a deadly enemy, great shaggy giant shapes appeared bounding from either side of us, and set upon the dozens advancing.

"Friends!" I called, as horror began to spread behind me. "Fear not! These wolves are on our side, the side of right, and they fight for God's cause. We are not alone in our battle, we have unlikely allies! Form a line across-wise behind me, and another line behind that, and hold your torches high, as these revenants sent by the devil cannot face fire!"

"And here is my own battalion," Edouard said to me, his voice easily carrying despite the noise that had begun to rage all around us. There was snarling from both the wolves and the demons below us on the hill, and the crackling of the flames behind us. More of the colourless people appeared from the woods, and fanned out, flanking the furious battle that was underway, and then diving in.

"Isabelle, we must isolate the leaders and kill them. Without direction, the others will lose their way. I must go down there," Edouard continued.

"No, please," I urged, suddenly frightened beyond measure. I only felt safe with him beside me, and furthermore, I realized with a jolt that I did not want him hurt.

"You can shield me. You can protect me. This is your gift and your strength, and you must employ it now. Think of an aura that will surround me, and your mind can make it real, an invisible structure that none of them, for all their strength and their viciousness and their cruelty, can penetrate. I know you, Isabelle, and I have faith in you. We will prevail," he murmured to me, and in a flash he was running.

A shield? An aura? I had no conception of what he could mean, but I watched him leap straight onto the back of one of the unnatural creatures as it wrestled with a wolf, and I thought with great fierceness and conviction that I wanted him to be unhurt. I saw one of the others come and strike a great blow which surely would have knocked him to the ground, but it seemed to slide instead of making a connection, and he gave no indication that he had felt it. As I continued to watch, and continued to project my certitude that no harm should come to him, I noticed that though many of the foreign fighters threw their fists at him he seemed charmed, and immune to their violence.

The engagement was brutal indeed though, and there was much bloodshed. The strength of the combatants was unbelievable and horrific. None were armed, but heads were being twisted from bodies, and limbs torn off as well, streams and rivers of red, red blood flowing freely, glistening wetly on the grass, and turning the air hot with its iron-rich odour.

Despite the efforts of Edouard's fighters the skirmish was being forced up the hill, the clamour and shouting coming closer. The smell of fear was behind me, the villagers agape in horror at the grisly scene, and at the prospect of a violent and bloody fate as I renewed my efforts with Edouard, not that I had wavered. Trying frantically to locate him, I saw a flash of hair a brighter red than his. It was a veritable mane, tossed on the sea of heaving bodies like a pennant on a storm wind. To my horror, when the flailing limbs of opponents parted for a long enough moment for a clear line of vision, I saw that the hair belonged to a woman. Her face was a mask of rage and hatred as she battled with a wolf which had its fangs sunk deep into her shoulder, its paws clawing at her abdomen. She grabbed handfuls of the animal's shaggy pelt and wrenched it away from her, neither noticing nor caring that its jaws never let go of her and it tore away a chunk of her flesh. From the glimpses I caught occasionally of Edouard's head, it was towards this woman that he was heading. She was ferocious, and I drew in a gasping breath, a prayer on my lips for greater courage, and for him to have the strength and fortitude to do what he needed to do.

I wasn't even sure to whom I was praying. I was aware of a repetition in my head of the words, "Be safe, be sure, be strong, be true," and even as they sounded to me without my utterance, I felt the shield around Edouard shift and tilt, but I held it steady, and it was almost as though I could see it - a shimmering in the air around him, enclosing him. With my exhortations, and the outpourings of faith I was sending towards him, the shield began to change and expand. To my astonishment, it spread around the man next to him, and the man beyond, and to the nearest wolf, and then the next. Although I knew no-one fighting under Edouard's command, soon I could identify them by where my shield fell. There were far fewer of them than their opponents, but now under my mysterious protection, it appeared as though they couldn't be hurt. They began to inflict wounds more in number than before, and more in degree.

It took another hour, but eventually the invading army was stopped. Bodies lay ruined and mutilated on the battlefield, while some of the combatants had fled back towards the river and the woods. Edouard staggered to me, his hair now stiffened and caked in blood, and plenty of it on his torn clothes and exposed skin, but he appeared miraculously unharmed.

"Send your people home, but tell them to leave their torches. We will take care of all this, and they don't need to see it - they've seen enough."

One by one his wolves came to me, and his people came to me, and he introduced them, but there were too many names for me to remember.

"I will see you to your home, Isabelle, and then I have more to see to. The head of the opposing army has met her end, but the stragglers must be apprehended and eliminated lest they attempt to seek vengeance at a later date. There will be a bonfire here tonight to destroy the remains of those we killed - you may tell your people that it is a victory celebration, but tell them they must stay indoors. Tomorrow they will need to send for the children, but tonight everyone must rest. You are all safe."

Relief and exhaustion overtook me then, and I slumped against his chest. He was very cold, the exertion of the past few hours having failed to warm him at all.

"Come, Isabelle," he murmured, gathering me up, and he carried me home, and took me up the stairs to my bedroom, bringing me a damp cloth and washing my face and hands and then tenderly laying me on my mattress.

"We will patrol the area, but we will keep well back from the town. The war is won. And Isabelle, I know people by their scents. I couldn't pick up the scent of your father on any of them, which means he must be alive somewhere. I will look in the woods for him tonight, and see to it that he is brought back to you. You entire town has been spared but for the one unfortunate man whose head they took, and they are utterly defeated. There are matters I must attend to now, but I will return in a few days. Sleep. Sleep peacefully and await my return."

I was asleep before I saw him slip beneath my casement.

The next day the children were fetched, and the town celebrated its delivery from would-be oppressors. Too tired to attend the proceedings, I rested, and waited for my father.

He arrived that evening, startled, but telling me that in the course of his investigating the wild animal attacks he had journeyed to the next town, where attacks were still taking place. Having assured himself of my safety, he felt he had to return where he was needed. I knew Edouard was taking care of matters but was reluctant to inform my father of that fact, so I bid him take care, and told him I would see him in as many days as it took to resolve the issue.

But unexpectedly in the following days, people in my town averted their eyes when I passed them in the street, and suddenly became hard of hearing when I greeted them.

While my father was still away, a mere two days later, I awoke to the sound of pounding, as though fists were striking wood, and upon opening my door found a group of townspeople there.

Surging they were, none wanting to be the first to speak, yet all apparently bursting with things to say.

"How is it that you knew what to do the day of the attack upon our town?" a voice eventually asked, and I could not identify the speaker.

"How is it that you were in league with wolves and demons?" the inquisitor asked.

I had wondered if I might face questions as to my obvious prior knowledge of the occurences of the battle day, and of my co-operation with Edouard, a stranger of the same appearance as the evil ones.

"A voice came to me and told me of the terrible things that were to happen, and so I had forewarning," I answered.

"What voice?" came a quiet, mistrustful enquiry and I understood then that this group was a self-appointed deputation.

"The voice of an angel," I answered firmly.

A member of the town's council pushed his way through the small congregation of people and came to stand at their head.

"An angel? Where did the angel speak to you? And when?" he asked, brows furrowed.

"He spoke to me in my chamber, at night."

"You were visited at night, when you were alone in your chamber, by an _angel_?" he queried.

"Yes, sir, I speak nothing but the truth," I answered.

"And why did you believe this manifestation to be an angel?"

"Because of the glory of his voice and his face. His beauty surpassed that of any mortal man. It was clear to me that he was come straight from God in Heaven."

"And why did this angel speak to you?"

"He said that I alone of all the people in this town would have the ability to save our people from the oncoming attack."

Throughout this discourse had been mutterings and whispers from behind the man now facing me. He cleared his throat and the noises stopped, as all seemed to hang on what he was about to say.

"There will be a hearing," was his pronouncement.

"Sir - what manner of hearing?" I asked, now perturbed.

"You will be questioned by and in front of more learned persons than myself. Representatives of the Church and those in governance of the area wish to know the details of your claimed visitations and annunciations, and the identity of he who informed you."

"Am I being accused of a crime?"

"You will be informed of the time and place at which the hearing is to take place. Your absence will indicate guilt."

"Sir! I am guilty of nothing! I am an honest Christian and I seek only to serve God and obey his directives!" I gasped.

"Honest Christians do not hear voices in the night. Honest Christians do not receive harbingers of death, or collaborate with demons and fiends in animal form. Honest Christians do not claim to portent the future."

The small crowd drifted away, and I shut my door, collapsing on the floor behind it. I was being vilified, having committed no crime. It seemed the councillor had already tried me in his own mind, and condemned me. At the upcoming hearing, I would be found either insane or wicked. If I fled I would be hunted down, as my fleeing would be interpreted as an admission of guilt. There was no possible good outcome for me.

I was not ashamed, though. I had acted in what I thought was the common good. At no time had I let self interest rule me, and I had not let fear be my master. On the morrow I would face my accusers with my head high, and faith in my heart - for surely none could consider me guilty of witchcraft - nor deem me a raving lunatic? Was the town not now safe - and all the children spared?

They came for me in the morning, and my hands were secured as though I were a common criminal. I was marched to the law court, and the streets I traversed were lined with those who had followed me to the battlefield. Some held handkerchiefs over their mouths, eyes glassed with tears, yet spoke not in my defense, and some - some shook their heads and cast doubting, sideward glances, and their lips moved in silent utterance of the dreaded accusation which, if upheld by the court, would result in my execution.

The one who could save me, could exonerate me, could uphold my claims was nowhere to be seen or heard, despite my desperate pleas in the night. But then - what material defense could he offer me, being a supernatural creature himself? I prayed to God, as well as to my angel, but neither had answered, and I faced my accusers alone.

I was questioned as to my background, my childhood, and my beliefs. Everything about me had always been ordinary, and I answered to that effect. Everything, that is, until the angel. As far as I knew, I had done no wrong, broken no laws, and committed no sin. An angel had visited me and prophesied to me, and I had acted on his advice, which I took to be God's word. As a result a town had been saved from monsters.

Yet the accusers sought to discredit me. Apparently my crime was that I took the word of my angelic advisor and did not consult the church on the matter of the demons who would have defiled our town and slaughtered our people. I should have spoken first to the minister so that he might have prayed for guidance from the true God. I should not have believed that a voice I heard and a vision I saw were of Divine origin. I should not have claimed them so, nor acted on their advice.

A written statement was prepared detailing my wrongdoing, which I was asked to sign. Able to neither read nor write, I was reliant upon a member of the court to read that statement to me. However, it called for me to denounce Edouard as a figment of my fevered mind. Due to its falsehood, I could not make my mark upon it.

Thus, a verdict was reached, and a sentence passed.

I was afraid, a little, and at the same time jubilant, for I would go to meet my Lord, and I would be joined with my angel in Heaven.

Upon the morning I was led to the location that would be my final earthly place.

Edouard had told me he would come when I called for him, and surely he would come now - either to deliver me, or to be my guide.

A masked man bound me, and another masked man set a torch to the fuel at my feet as I raised my voice and called...

My voice rang true, high and clear, and I knew my angel flew to me, as I flew to him...


	12. Chapter 12 Belle

**Belle**

I was just a lad when I ran away from home to fight in the Crusades.

I was a man when I came home.

Not only because I'd grown a full foot and more - but because of the things I'd seen. It wasn't so much the service of God that drew me to join the fight against the Saracens, it was the wanting to leave the narrow confines of my home - the impenetrable dark forest that bordered me on every side and made me feel my whole world was trunks and branches and leaves...

Yet in seeing the world beyond, and in learning just little enough of it to understand that I knew nothing, I wanted the constancy and surety of those very trees. Outside and away was bewildering - noises and spaces and foreign tongues and food so wild it hurled itself from my body within an hour of having eaten it.

I had left the home of my father, a woodcutter, and walked to the nearest town, and from thence had walked to another town, all to offer myself humbly in the fight for the Lord, and for the Way.

I found many others like me, with fire in their hearts and eyes, and we converged upon seaports in our hundreds. During our long voyage we confessed all our secrets to one another - not that they amounted to much.

"_I once kissed a maid, behind a haystack whilst her father was tending to the chickens_."

"_I once broke into a storeroom and stole a full jug of mead, and after I had finished it I fell headfirst into pig's muck_."

Believe me, these admissions pale to innocence after what I have seen, and experienced. None of those companions I met on the ship have lived to return with me. Ends are met in the unChristian lands over the sea, and we can do naught but pray for deliverance and clemency, and to hope that the Lord acknowledges we fought in His name, for His glory.

A poisoned arrow struck me during an encounter with the army of the Caliphate, and it was allowed that even if I recovered sufficiently to ever walk, I would still have not much further use as a soldier, and thus was left to my own devices, to find my way home if I might.

Having a yearning for the green of England, and not to have my spirit wander in eternity over a foreign landscape, I determined that I should recover sufficiently to make my way back to Albion.

Due in part to my own fortitude, and also to the kindness of strangers, I arrived at last at a port in the Kingdom of France from which I could embark upon a voyage home to my motherland.

And though I have much to tell from my time abroad, of war and suffering, courage and carnage, the tale I will now tell you arises from an encounter on my journey once having set foot back in merrie England, land of my birth and heart.

It is many miles across the very south east of this land, where the cliffs shine white on a clear day and look like the giant cloudy tops of waves when the sky is overcast. It is many miles again to my leafy and quiet home, perhaps halfway up this wooded isle, perhaps more. I was in no hurry, having learnt well by now how to get by on little food, and I was lean and very strong, my wound completely healed. The Lord grants grace to those who strive, and He lends them the will to persevere.

Probably a week or two had past - I had no particular interest in timekeeping, and I was making my way along one of England's many leagues of common ways, when I came upon a slow and curious realisation. The verdancy I always associated with the land of my birth was giving way to a dry and dull barrenness. I was passing a lakeside, and rushes which should have been emerald and brilliant were brown and lifeless. At first I assumed that this area must have been lately ravaged by fire, but nothing was blackened. Perhaps an uncharacteristically hot summer season was responsible for the parched deadening. Certainly the bare-branched trees supported no bird life, as no joyous and busy twittering or chirping was to be heard.

Making my way further across the hillside of this unfamiliar landscape, I became aware of a man walking towards me. He was a knight, approaching me from the opposite direction, but what remnants of armour he wore were in poor condition and sorry disarray, and there was no horse in sight, nor a page. Clearly, he had met with mischance.

"Sir," I called, as he lurched unevenly along the path. "Whither dost thou journey, and may I be of assistance to thee?"

His skin bore a deathly pallor, though his cheeks were flushed, and there was the moistened bloom of fever on his cheeks and brow. Such a look I had heard tell of, and it was in fearful and hushed tones, usually accompanied by the whisper "plague".

"Whither has thou been?" I asked, a little uneasily I'll admit, because the devastation of plague is not something to be spread from hamlet to town, about the countryside. If he was indeed as ill as he appeared, and he was carrying contagion, he should not proceed along his current path. The towns I had passed thought were plague free, and I had heard of no such current scourge or pestilence since my arrival back upon Albion's shores.

"My good man, I am not entirely sure where it is that I have been, although I suspect there is a name for it. Perhaps you will believe me, and perhaps not, because even to my own ears it has a ring of the fanciful, if not the fantastical. I have been in Faeryland, good sir, and there I have met with my downfall and my deliverance," he answered.

"Sir, I am in no haste this morning, and I have in my haversack not much more than a scrap of bread and cheese - but 'twould please me greatly if thee and I were to sit awhile beneath yonder trees, and I am more than happy to share with thee what I have, though it be humble. It seems to me that thou hast a tale to tell, and 'twould weigh lighter on thee for the telling, for t'would become but half the burden," I said.

He sighed, and a sigh of such magnitude I'd not heard before, neither from a man sick nor tired, nor heartsore. It was a sigh with the tone of ruin and hopelessness about it, and it was a desolate sound.

Nevertheless, he walked unsteadily to the tree I had indicated, and sat himself there, awkwardly in his armor, with his helmet cast to the ruined grass to one side of him.

"Food, sir?" I offered. "It looks to be a good while since thou hast partaken of any, if thy pallor be anything to go by."

"Food, I require none," he answered, dragging his thin fingers through unruly hair. "But thy company - aye, that I'll take. And thine ears, too, as I cannot contain this tale of mine, and must tell it lest it burst me. Art though inclined, traveller, to hear a mystery and a tragedy, to be aprised of a soul's misfortune and subsequent undoing, and to know what can henceforth never be unknown, after the hearing of it?"

I was intrigued.

The shade afforded was not much, but the sunlight was wan that day, and sitting for a time was welcome after so many hours afoot. Besides, I was of a mood to hear something out of my sphere of experience.

"Be thy tale to do with the fight for Christendom and the shedding of blood for the Lord, it may not come to my ears as an entirely undreamed-of mystery, as I am recently returned from engagement in the Just War," I said lightly.

"It is plain to me from thy countenance that thou hast been a soldier, and that thine eyes hath seen death meted by thine own hand to crimeless men whose questionable sin is that they hold a different faith. It is equally plain to me that thou hadst neither the heart nor the stomach for such murders. But what has befallen me was not brought about by conflict in the service of the shining ideals of Christendom," he assured me. "My fate was delivered to me by the kisses and sighs of a beautiful woman."

A woman! I had barely seen a woman in years, and before taking leave of my home I had barely seen one either. Yet, I am not one of those men who will seek to use a woman for their own enjoyment. I believe they are no lesser a being in the eyes of God than I am, and I will not hear ill of them, and will not stand by to see a woman abused.

"Sir, I must advise you I have no wish to hear bawdy recounts of a lusty wench - " I began, but he shook his head and urged my silence with a frown.

"I would not insult you or her with crude words and recollections of a vulgar nature," he said quietly. "I am a man of honour, and I would not besmirch a woman's reputation. But are you seated comfortably? Pray, let me begin."

My back was to the tree's dry trunk, and there I settled myself, leaning with my legs out before me. The knight took up a similar position against a tree close, and he pursed his lips, frowning at some contemplation, perhaps wondering where best to commence his story, or how to frame it.

Eventually he arrived at his decided beginning.

"I met her not far from here. Dost thou know this region? Of course, thou art traversing it. I was not one of those who pledged to bear arms in order to earn a full remission of sin. That degree of fervour was not in me, as I knew full well I had little to repent of in my life so far, and wished not to risk that life in foreign lands battling for an uncertain cause. I know myself to be heretical in making such a statement, but I thought I might meet my maker sooner rather than later had I journeyed abroad to fight, and I preferred to stay here and live longer, in case heaven proved not to be as wondrous as I had been led to believe.

"As a knight who remained in England, I still had duties aplenty, and still fought. With so many men away, there was a shortage of trained armsmen in the land, and crime was rife. There were a lot of petty raids on cattle and other property and I worked ceaselessly in defense of my Liege, protecting his lands and his home from marauders. It came to be that I established a regular patrol around the boundaries of his holding, and thus it was that I was riding one day on the South East border when I beheld the fairest sight mine eyes have ever had the grace and privilege to behold.

"A horse was on the path alongside me suddenly, a creature of gloss and shine, with slender limbs and an elegant head. Its bridle and headpiece were set with chalcedony and silver, its mane woven with ribbons and flowers. The horse was remarkable enough, nearly robbing me of breath, but when I lifted my gaze to the maiden riding it, I felt I was in the presence of Beauty herself. Her loveliness was such that I have not the words to convey it. She was moon pale, with lips of amaranth, and tresses of a deep and lustrous brown falling like finest silk past her waist. Her kirtle was of midnight blue, and her feet in the stirrups were bare. I was entranced immediately, a spell cast upon me woven by her presence. When she turned her face to mine, it was all I could do not to fall into a swoon, and slip fainting from my mount. Though she looked at me steadily, her eyes had a faraway expression, and there was an untamed aspect to them, as though at any moment she might urge her steed to turn and gallop. I spoke to her and asked for her name, and in a wild, lilting voice, she told me, "Belle."

"She dismounted from her horse and held her hand up to me, and in all haste I dismounted too, to be at her side. Wildflowers were in bloom everywhere about us it seemed, in celebration of our meeting, and I picked handfuls, remembering a skill my mother had taught me. It is possible to weave and interweave the stems, thereby making a floral wreath, and I made her one of bluebells and dock, michaelmass daisies and primroses. I placed it upon her head and she laughed in delight, and I made strands which I wrapped around her wrists. Into each chain of flowers I entwined scented leaves - rue and sage and the like, and she inhaled deeply of them, her deeply lashed eyelids dropping their delicate veil tantalisingly over her wild eyes as she sighed and murmured.

"Lost, I was - quite endlessly and irredeemably lost; enamoured beyond all reason and foundering with no hope ever of regaining self or equilibrium. Her very presence intoxicated me, her scent drugged me, her dulcet tones enslaved me, and her beauty rendered me insensible.

"Madam, wither dost thou journey? May I place myself and my steed most humbly at your service, and aid you in your travel to wherever it is that you would fain visit? It is no trouble whatsoever to me, indeed it would be my privilege and honor," I told her in the hushed tones in which one who is ordained delivers the sacrament, such is the solemnity of the words. Truly, I was hers to command.

"Her voice was light, her accent exotic, but I could make out words here and there, and she could gesture, and I helped her up upon my horse, cupping my hands to accept her pretty foot and let her use me as a mounting step. Behind her I sat, and she sang in words unknown and thrilling as my horse cantered the flower-strewn paths, taking a route entirely unfamiliar to me though I had lived thereabouts all my life. I was entirely hesitant to place my arms around her, not wanting to appear forward or bold, so at first I rested my hands upon my thighs, but she swayed so as she rode, and twisted to speak, that I placed my hands lightly upon her waist to ensure her balance, and I was drawn even deeper under her mysterious allure by the feel of her slender form under my hands. I was almost in a fever.

"All the way along she would urge me to stop so that she could dismount, and she would grasp some stem or bloom and hold it up to me, for me to discover that it was edible and sweet. In such a way she eased the constant state of hunger I had lived with for months, and quenched the thirst I had become so accustomed to it seemed to have been my lifelong companion. She picked great trumpet-shaped flowers for me, which proved to be filled with nectar such as kings must drink, that never ordinary mortals had never dreamed of. Her smile at my surprise that these bucolic repasts should be so delicate and complex was delightful.

"The afternoon bore on yet the sun seemed to move not in the sky, no matter how long we rode. Though my horse set a fair pace, our progress was leisurely, so frequent were our stops. I minded not at all, as with every moment in her company I wondered more how I had lived thus long without having known her. The way began to look unfamiliar, and I was no longer sure where we were facing, whether we travelled in an arc or line, or indeed whether we moved towards the sun or away from it. None of this I paid heed to.

"And so having lost my bearings entirely, I was disorientated when we came through a gap in trees and arrived at a meadow, enclosed and beatific. Blooms were abounding there in twilight shades of lilac and lavender; trees surrounded it overhanging all the purple carpet with shade, and enchantment was in the air.

"What place is this?" I whispered to her, her scented shoulder just below my lips as she sat in front of me, and her wondrous hair falling over me.

"Tis a faery meadow. Is it not magical?" her voice, soft and low, whispered back. "Fair knight, I doubt not that thou hast travelled many leagues, that thou hast wielded sword and dagger in the name of thy God and thy Kingdom, and that thou must be heart weary and aching of limb. Let us dismount here and rest awhile. Lie with me on this fragrant blanket of blossom, let me hold thy head to my breast and stroke thy hair..."

"I swung off my horse and held my arms up for her, and she slipped into them without hesitation, hands at my shoulders to steady herself. But though I let her go immediately, her light touch remained on me, burning me through. Under her lashes her eyes looked up, and they seemed to convey longing and invitation. This was surely delusion on my part, and hallucination, and I moved to step away, but she stepped with me, sighing, her lips now parted. It appeared to me that the natural tendency of my humor towards melancholia had become unbalanced and a new choleric element was striving for the upper hand.

"Mistress," I gasped, struggling for breath. "I am indeed weary, for I fear my mind is becoming overwrought. I must needs rest, as thou has so rightly suggested."

"The grass was soft, the meadow fragrant and lovely as I sank into it, pausing to remove those elements of my armour which would make repose uncomfortable. My beautiful companion sank next to me, whispering words in a language I knew not, eyeing me all the while with a gaze I fancied slumbrous yet at the same time blazing. Yes, I was febrile, undoubtedly, and mistaking her demeanour for provocative when it was in fact demure - this lowering of her satin eyelids and fluttering of her smoky charcoal lashes.

"Yet - was I mistaken? Even as she lay on her back before her arms reached up, her eyes now wide and steady. Those slender and lovely arms she wrapped about my neck, securing me more tightly than iron bonds could have done, and there was no resisting her. Her intent was clear - she wanted to be kissed prettily, and made love to.

"I bent my face to hers and pressed my lips to her cheeks, her forehead, her brows, her eyes. As I did so she hummed a crooning tune, holding my head, twining those long dextrous fingers into my hair and giving me such a paradoxical sensation of exultation and tranquility as I had not felt in my life before. Her soft mouth nuzzled at my neck with whimpers low, and she nipped me there lightly, her little teeth grazing my skin and her tongue lapping to taste me. When I eased myself down next to her on that pleasantly strewn carpet of flowers, I was sated with the joy of her kisses - the heaviness of my limbs and the ecstasy of my senses soon proving to be more than enough to render me vulnerable to Morpheus' seductive call.

"And as I slumbered there, cradled in the embrace of the Lady Belle, in the meadow where the sun shone not, dreams came to me. Visions, ideas, portents - who's to say what has come to pass, what _will_ come to pass, and what will never be?

"It seemed as though the visions could not have come from my own mind, for they represented nothing I had ever seen - they were a parade of the dead, come back to unlife. Soldiers, generals, lords, marching in step, and turning empty eyes towards me and the Lady. But in my stupor I knew them to be not truly alive - they occupied a state without warmth or feeling or quickening, a state without sanguinity - hopeless and wan. Nightmarish apparitions they were indeed, traipsing across the hinterland and winterland I seemed to occupy, as in my dream this meadow of flowers took on the appearance of the bare and barren location where I had met the Lady. Not yielding, nor fecund but sterile and stark. They paced before me and past me, these irredeemable souls, mouths stretched all in a ghastly and horrifying rictus. In my unconscious condition it seemed to me that they were of an intent to commit unspeakable harm upon my person, yet the presence of the Lady forbade them.

"And my friend - that is all there is to tell. When I awoke I found myself deserted and chilled on this slope of a hill, in this place which I now believe to be damned. Sincerely, I have given account of myself and my experiences, and I have been entirely forthcoming in the matter of what lately happened to me. I have counted three days and three nights shaking and fevered, and entirely sleepless, and I fear God's glory will not find me here. Indeed I fear God's glory will not find me anywhere it may be that I choose to wonder henceforth. Therefore I linger, caring not that this place be so inhospitable, as she who has possession of my very heart and soul may yet return. Yet in those three days I have not eaten and my hunger grows apace. As you see, hereabouts nothing lives."

I paused as I reflected upon the extraordinary story which had just been related to me. A reply was due, but I could scarcely formulate one when what he spoke of was so beguiling and esoteric. A lady of beauty indescribable? A blue meadow? A company of warriors bloodless all, and wishing to visit wrath and hatred upon one man?

"Thy tale is indeed remarkable, sir," I responded at last. "This Lady of whom thou speaks - perhaps rather than remaining here idly it may be that thou and I could journey together to find the pasture of lavender and violet thou spoke of? Dost thou recall the direction in which the Lady took you? We have no horse, it is true, but as you recounted your passage was slow, and maybe it would take us no more than a day to find our destination. What say you?"

"What say I?" he murmured, as though considering a response.

"What say I?" he repeated, turning to regard me with puzzlement and curiosity.

"What say I?" he then growled, his expression becoming suddenly rapacious, and he lunged at me, mouth agape and teeth bared.

I am a trained soldier, and not only that, nature's inheritance has granted me unusual size and strength. Still, it took everything I had to hold him from me, as he seemed intent on grappling, and he appeared nigh on rabid, angling his jaws and teeth as though to bite into me. Thankfully he was weakened, undoubtedly from his days of starvation, if any of his tale was true. And thankfully I am considerably over the average height and weight for a full-grown man, and though his desperation lent him strength, my sense for self-preservation lent me more.

I threw him from me with no little effort, and took deep breaths.

"Sir," I said. "I have listened to thy travails, I am sorry for thy loss, but if you come for me again I will kill thee."

He watched me sullenly, and it was then that I had the inkling that the poor man was insane, driven quite from his senses by privation and solitude. There was no Lady, unless she be the manifestation of all that he lacked and missed, and had ardent desires for - warmth and succor in these times of war and deprivation. I could not feel enmity for him even though he had attacked me - I could feel nothing but pity. He was a wandering soul, lost in these times. If not for the grace of God, his fate would be my own.

"It is now that we must part company, and regretfully I leave thee to remain here, if that is thy will. Fare thee well, sir, and if it be the Lady you wish to find, you have my sincerest wishes that you should happen upon her again, sooner rather than later," I told him.

And so I continued on my way, leaving that dread, blighted place behind, and the pale knight with the afflicted mind, lingering amongst the dead bracken.

It may be that another traveller would pass by - one carrying provisions upon his person, who could give the poor knight alms. It may be that a monk or holy person might chance upon him and grant him blessing. It may be that the Lady herself would return to her suitor and sweep him back to her realm, her arms held wide in benediction and welcome.

I am open to the possibility that I may have been briefly mad of hunger and thirst, and of the aftermath of all that had happened to me abroad, and that the knight I thought I saw and addressed was in me, a part of myself made external, my yearnings manifest in the descriptions of beauty and love and peace.

I would not return to seek him, for whatever he was, he contained a madness and danger that I would have to end with my sword.

And so I trudged on towards my home, with its constancy and surety and narrow confines, and I was glad to be doing so.

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Yes, I know my thees and thous are all over the place. I'm no scholar. If thee would like to volunteer to beta for me, and thou hast a literary degree or vast knowledge of matters linguistic and lexicographical, then prithee drop me a line. Verily, salutations and humble expressances of gratitude wilt be forthcoming.


	13. Chapter 13  Not Your Average Wolf

Folks, this is nuts. Don't read it if you're under eighteen, sensitive, or have any taste. I'm warning you. And please note, all activities in this ridiculous story are consensual (hey - that word has _sensual_ in it!). This story is **M** for Mature, but it should be I for Immature.

**Not Your Average Wolf**

Now that Renesmee Cullen is seventeen years old, she is allowed to go walking alone through the woods sometimes to take her grandmother a basket of treats. The biggest treat is Renesmee herself, as her grandmother adores her, but Grandmother Esme will be delighted with the flowers, both dried and fresh. She will coo over the pictures Renesmee has drawn for her and the card she has made, and she will ooh and aah over the ornaments that are gifts from Bella, Renesmee's mother, and Esme's daughter-in-law.

The woods are a mystery, deep and dark even on a bright day, and Renesmee is a study in red as she skips merrily along in the shadows. She has a penchant for the dramatic, and today she has chosen to be a celebration - no a_ resplendence_ of scarlet - dress, cape, tights, shoes and even panties. She's not in scarlet all over actually, but the rest is private, just now.

Humming as she strolls, she is unaware that she has a spectator.

Amber eyes watch her, and a wolf licks its lips as she passes. She looks rather tender. In particular, her breasts are perfectly sized, and a long tongue could make a sweeping pass from the base of one, over its nipple, and to the upper curve, in the flash of an eye. Unless of course, the owner of the tongue wanted to take things a little more slowly. In that case, the tongue would linger here and there, until her pretty pink nipples (and my word, they are pretty) tightened and tautened. That would be delightful, both for the licker and the lickee.

It's not often wolves have these types of inclinations, but this is no ordinary wolf. He has a secret. More than one, actually. I bet you can't guess any of them.

Wolves have a loping gait and they can run for hours without getting tired. That's not all they can do without getting tired - this particular wolf at any rate. Trotting alongside amongst the trees where she can't see him, he accompanies her for a while. But he was watching when Renesmee's mother bid her goodbye at the garden gate and he knows exactly where the girl is going. Understanding English is just one of the ways in which he is different to other wolves.

He bounds away from Renesmee, taking a shortcut he just happens to know, which is considerably quicker than the path the girl is taking.

He gets to her grandmother's house, and then does the trick he does. One of them, anyway. _He turns into a human._

And, oh my giddy aunt, he's gorgeous (actually, it just so happens that Renesmee has a giddy aunt, although that's not part of the story).

He's very tall, and he's sort of a russet red, with coal black hair, and the slanted golden eyes of his wolf incarnation. He is also naked. There is a distinct resemblance to Michelangelo's David in terms of musculature, but he is more well-endowed, as the male member of the famous statue is considerably smaller than its thumb. You might even call it dainty. The corresponding appendage of the wolfman is exuberantly larger. I'll leave you with that image.

Before he transformed he had scented the air, and now he confidently steps over the threshold, knowing that nobody is home but Grandmother.

Grandmother is quite young - she adopted Bella's husband and was not biologically old enough at the time to be his mother. Well, she still isn't of course, though she looks, acts and feels youthful. She's in the kitchen singing and baking cookies for the visitor she is awaiting when the tall man bursts in.

A little scream issues forth from her, but he sweeps her up forcefully and carries her with no effort at all, out of the house, down a pathway, and to a barn. One of his big hands is across her mouth, to stop further outbursts. She struggles and whimpers, but he is exceptionally strong and her struggles are to no avail.

When he sets her down, she is flat on her back in the straw of the barn, and he pins her with his knees, while tearing at her dress. He gets strips of fabric, and proceeds to bind her.

"No-one can help you. You'll have to wait until I come back," he informs her. Her eyes widen as she hears him - he plans to leave her there, her wrists tied behind her and her feet bound, all by the cotton that clothed her? He is a beast. He winks at her alarmed eyes and racing heart.

"Oh, don't worry. I _will_ be back," he assures her.

Once he has returned to the house, he has a plan. He overheard the mother say to the daughter that the grandmother had been ill, and he goes to the bedroom. Renesmee will look for her grandmother, and once she finds that Esme is not in the kitchen or living room, Renesmee will search.

The man who was a wolf climbs, bold as brass, into the huge, soft bed, and waits.

Before long, girlish tones float through the house, calling, "Esme! Esme! Where are you?"

Still he waits, hunched down low with the sheets and blankets pulled up.

"Grandmother! There you are!" Renesmee declares, and from the sound of her voice, she is in the bedroom doorway.

"But what are you doing in bed? My mother said you had been poorly. Is there anything I can do for you? Get you a glass of water?"

"Come close my dear," the man croaks, altering his voice. He is a gifted mimic, and sounds as though he could just possibly be a woman who is a little under the weather.

His quarry approaches the bed and reaches tenderly to what she supposes is her grandmother's shoulder. Imagine her shock when a very fast, very large hand clasps her suddenly, with a grip of iron.

She gasps as he emerges from the bedclothes, a man with a naked upper body. She trembles as his eyes rake over her, paying special attention to her rosy lips and then descending as slowly as a loving caress over her throat and heaving chest. His eyes measure her waist and hips, and stare so hard at her belly and thighs she wonders if he has X-ray vision. She wonders if he can see what lies beneath the velvet of her full skirt.

"Wh - what do you want? Please don't hurt me," she whimpers.

"Oh, I'm not going to hurt you, not one little bit," he says, and he's so strong with his grip on her wrist that she can't twist away. Her dress has laces down the front holding the bodice together, and to her growing fear his other hand moves to undo the little bow, and starts to pull at the ribbons.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and she has no idea how beguiling she looks, all a-blush and flushing, her creamy pale decolletage heating with her apprehension. She can't still the racing of her pulse, and casts her eyes down, only to see his clever fingers slowly baring her to his scorching gaze.

"All in red, forest girl? Did you realize how enticing you'd be when you came out this morning?"

"Please," she whispers, as he pulls the two sides of her bodice apart. She is wearing a very plain white undergarment, sturdy, and not revealing in the slightest. It could hold up battleships, and her breasts are small and dainty as new apples deep inside it.

"_Fuck_," he groans, mesmerized by what he cannot see. He slips the dress from her shoulders, so that her arms are now immobilized within the sleeves.

That makes the rest of his activities so much easier.

She is stunned and silent as he slides a hand under her hem and moves it up to her knee, to her thigh and beyond. His stroking, questing fingers continue to ascend, and they curve over the soft silkiness of her behind. His breathing is now ragged, and his eyes completely wild. Where is the fabric obstacle he expected to encounter? After that straitjacket of a bra - _where are her knickers_?

As his hand continues to explore, he finds his answer. One tiny shred of ribbon is across her hip, and he follows it with his finger to find it meet another across the top of her buttocks, and the two combine to a single thread to plunge into the crevice leading...

"_Christ_! What are you wearing?" he demands, and pushes her skirt up as high as he can. A tiny red lace triangle nestling just between the tops of her thighs meets his eyes, and through the lace is a black curly network of fine hair.

"Show me," he murmurs urgently, pulling at her hips, pulling her closer, spreading her knees, staring between them. Oh my God, her dress is bunched up around her waist now, and below it the flimsy scarlet material covering her pubis narrows to a thin line that disappears to where he can't see.

"Will you touch me?" he asks hoarsely.

Renesmee wonders what he means, looking back at the huge man in front of her, at his face and shoulders and chest. The bed covers are at his hips, and as her eyes continue to move down him she's shocked. There is something lying vertically up his belly, beneath the blankets and the sheets, something straining at the bedcovers. She has heard a little about men, and how they are built, and what they are like, and she knows what this must be.

Even as she stares, he frees one of her arms from its constrictions and guides it to his torso, and beyond. He pushes her fingers until she is clasping the thing through the bedclothes, and he pulls her hand into a forward and backward motion, while his other hand reaches for her chest and kneads at one breast.

"Oh, Jesus, why am I messing around like this?" he mutters suddenly, and he tugs at the bra. Strong as it is, of WWII construction and built to withstand a siege, he is far stronger than any invaders its designers could have envisaged. He drags it from her, leaving pink smudges on her shoulders from the straps.

Immediately both of his hands are on her upper arms and he holds her still as his lips move to the red marks on her, his tongue flitting out to lick at them. He is still lapping at them when his hands move to her breasts. His palms are absurdly big in comparison, but he cups her and squeezes and she is paralyzed, too stunned to move, to back away, to flee. As she kneels there awkwardly and motionless, his mouth trails its wet way down, and he captures a nipple, his hand still cupped around the surrounding breast, squeezing with a rhythm that matches the racing of her heartbeat. Before she can cry out, the hands have stroked down to her hips, and he's pulled her across him with a strength that forbids resistance. The very centre of her is pressed against that part of him under the bedcovers, which she discovers to be hard as stone.

"You know what's going to happen, don't you?" he pants to her. "Have you ever ridden a horse? You know when the horse starts trotting? You have to go up and down."

He holds her hips still and moves underneath her, and there is no point in her yelling, but on the other hand she can yell all she likes. She's in a little cottage in the middle of the woods. Sitting astride a naked man.

His grip on her is firm, but his movements beneath her are slow and persuasive. He rocks up - wait - would you call that rocking? It's more of an undulation. There's a little part of her, complicated and indescribable, that she touches sometimes, and she's not even sure what it looks like but that part of her is in contact with him now, in an insistent and delicious way. She has bare breasts, the remains of a dress around her middle, exposed thighs, and she feels naughty. She feels as though she doesn't have to take any responsibility for her actions, because she is the child here, and this man is the adult. He is _making_ her do this. He is making her feel so wickedly good, watching her closely with narrow yellow eyes, black-fringed and deep. His lips are full, and they were sinful on her nipples - what would they feel like against hers? What would he do with his tongue if she pressed her open mouth to his?

She decides to find out.

Bending her head, she seeks his mouth with hers, and is rewarded by the feel of his lips opening to her. A groan comes from somewhere in his throat and she feels the vibration of it in her mouth. Letting her hips go his hands come up to her head, which he cradles tenderly, tilting it. His thumb slips into the corner of her mouth, parting her lips further, and then retreating as his tongue goes in there, soft and exploratory. It's so soft and sweet and new, she doesn't know how to respond.

At her hesitance, he pulls back and regards her.

"I can't do this," he demurs, to her surprise. "I thought I could, but I was wrong. You're barely out of childhood. You need romance, and lovely words, and patience and a safe place. Not what's happening here, and not now."

She pouts at him, because it was just getting really good, but he's adamant.

"I'm not going to take this any further. Let's get you tidied up."

He shifts her bra straps back up to her shoulders, and sorts the dress out too, with some expertise. His nimble fingers have no problem tightening her laces again. This is not what she expected.

"Have I done something wrong?" she asks.

"No, and I'm not going to either. Any more than I already have, that is. Let's have another kiss, and I'll be gone."

He rises to sitting, with her still astride him, and gives her a kiss even sweeter than the last. Then he grips her by the shoulders, and simply lifts her right off him. He rolls out of the bed, and she gets a good look at what she just narrowly escaped from. Gracious. Perhaps it's just as well that he stopped.

The wolf man leaves the bewildered girl sitting in her grandmother's bedroom, and looks through the house. He knows the woman has sons and there might be some clothes for him. In a hall cupboard he finds jeans and a t-shirt, and pulls them on. He's so big, the garments are very tight. In the state he's in, the jeans are downright uncomfortable.

Passing through the kitchen, he can smell that the cookies are ready and he pulls the oven tray out of the oven, and turns the dial so that the oven is off. Can't have the house catching fire, with that pretty little girl all flummoxed in there and alone.

Now, there is some business to attend to in the barn. He's only been gone fifteen minutes, and in he goes to find Esme lying in the straw, eyes closed. They flutter open at his approach, though he is silent.

"My husband will be here very soon, and he has a gun," she warns him, immediately.

"We'd better be quick then," he answers, and she begins to tremble.

Now, Esme is happily married to a wonderful man who worships her. He worships and respects her and treats her with extreme reverence and care and courtesy, and makes love to her frequently. He makes love to her frequently and shows her the utmost consideration and he always sees to it that she come first. That's just it. He always sees to it that she comes first.

Esme feels that passion is missing in her marriage. She wishes she could drive her husband wild with lust and desire and need and that he wouldn't stay so much in control during sex. She wishes he would lose his mind and fuck her in a frenzy and come helplessly all over the place, so that she could feel - well, just feel. _Feel_. He won't even let her suck his _penis _(she's not allowed to call it a cock) because he thinks that would be whorish and he thinks she's too good for that. She wishes that they could have sex without him holding back.

And now here she is on the floor, her husband is miles away, and a man so strong looking and handsome is standing tall in front of her and - is that? Ohmigod, it is - he seems to have a substantial erection.

"What are you going to do to me?" she asks breathlessly.

"What do you want me to do to you?" he says, and he kneels down.

"I took your cookies out, by the way. They're not going to burn. They smelled really good. Was that cinnamon and nutmeg you used?" and his hand is snaking up her calf.

She trembles with dread, knowing what he will find. She has sheer, sexy underwear on, because despite her husband's lack of fervor, she is a very sexual creature, and she wears provocative underwear just to remind herself of that fact. This man is going to get the wrong impression. He's going to think she's a wanton. Would she wear provocative underwear for any other reason?

Both his hands are sliding up her skirt now, and he pushes the hem to her hips and parts her thighs, her ankles still tied.

"Holy shit," he breathes, at the sight that greets him. Her panties are sheer all right, and with her legs spread so wide he can see everything. She squirms, embarrassed at this exposure, but he holds her down and bends his head and puts his mouth on her, over the transparent microfiber of her panties. His mouth is so, _so_ hot. She has lain there for fifteen minutes wondering what he will do, and he has come back in and is _licking_ her.

Her hips push up, involuntarily, and she surrenders to the sensation. He slips his hands under her, takes a buttock in each of them, and holds her up to his mouth like a bowl of miso soup.

God, if her husband were to come home and find her like this...sensuously arching up to some random man who walked through her door...

The wolf man stops suddenly, and looks up at her, quirking an eyebrow.

"It just occurred to me I haven't aquainted myself with your tits yet," he remarks, and she is almost far gone enough to plead with him to stay where he is, she wants to buck against him and wants him to keep going, but he's stopped. Her husband always keeps going. He's so polite.

This man unbuttons her blouse carefully, as her husband does, but he pushes it aside roughly, and both eyebrows raise. Why is he looking at her like that? Oh, right. She's wearing her slut bra. It's cut so low, so dangerously low, that her nipples actually stick out over the top of the tiny cup, and they're tingling and hard. Her husband only saw it once and disapproved of it, but this man abandons her pussy altogether and makes for her breasts like there's no tomorrow. He swoops on one, and she forgets about the discomfort of having her hands behind her back and revels in the sensation of him sucking and mouthing at her chest. Oh God, she's a bad person. An intruder breaks in, ties her up, sucks on her tits and she enjoys it? She's damned, for sure.

"Jesus," he moans, letting her nipple go for a second. His hips have been grinding rudely and urgently into her and she has been responding.

"If I untie you, will you run away?" he pants, and there's not the slightest chance she's running, she's too aroused. She shakes her head mutely.

"Turn over," he commands, and it's awkward for her, so he has to help. He frees her hands, then reaches down for her ankles, deftly undoing the ties there as well. Flipping her back over, he moves inbetween her legs, and undoes his zipper, pulling his dick out and pushing his jeans halfway down his thighs. Right in front of her, he wraps his hand around himself and strokes, watching her eyes. Her husband never does this. Her husband takes his trousers off and folds them before he comes to bed because he is never so impatient for her that he would be untidy, and he would no more pleasure himself in front of her than he would put a kitten in a microwave. This man is unbearably sexy.

He leans over, propping himself on one arm, and positions his cock where the thin film of her panties still covers her.

The moment of truth. Is he going to do this? Is she? He's poised above her, and his fingers reach for the fabric.

"You are so fucking wet," he breathes, and she knows it. He is going to _do_ her, and while she's not going to give him a verbal assent, she's not going to fight.

He pushes in and growls.

"I'd like to make this good for you, but I don't think I'm going to have the time," he says, and he sits back on his heels, pulling hard on her hips, and yanking her up onto his thighs. Hunched over her, he fucks far harder and far faster than her husband ever has.

Tipped uncomfortably upwards, shoulders on the ground, there's no possible way she could come. There's no contact with her clit at all. His eyes move from her breasts as they jiggle around, wobbling like two jellies with the force of his thrusting, to her mound and slit, where his pumping cock is sinking into her and re-emerging at a pace that's almost punishing. Desperately, she reaches a hand between her thighs but he bats it away, saying, "No you don't, you'll spoil the view... I want to watch my cock going in and out of you ... your lips are opening for me...I'm so fucking _hard_ for you...you're _coating_ my cock, you're making me glisten...it's a shame you can't see this, it looks so good..."

Her husband never talks dirty.

It's only a matter of minutes before the man pulls out with a groan, and grabs his penis, his hand encircling it and pulling with a motion that is jerky and has lost all regular timing. He lets out a grunt as he points the head of it straight at her chest. Strings of white liquid spurt from the tip forcefully, one, two, three, and a couple more follow in a dribble. The first three have landed between her breasts.

He takes her hips again and lets them down gently onto the straw underneath her, shuffling his knees back a couple of inches, then leans over her, eyes wicked, supporting himself on one arm. She is absolutely _appalled_ when the fingertips of his other hand touch the ejaculate on her and spread it to her breast. He actually rubs it around her nipple, then bends to her and kisses her on the lips, as he plays with her breast.

"Well, I'm sorry, ma'am, that was kind of in a hurry, but you did say your husband would be home soon, and I have no wish to be caught by an angry man and shot," he says against her mouth, almost seeming to be laughing.

Esme is too delirious to care.

He pulls his clothes back on and helps to her to her feet. She's a little unsteady, having never been so quickly and soundly fucked. God, he's long and lean, the t-shirt too tight, the narrow jeans showing his taut thighs off to perfection. When he turns around, walking away, and she sees his ass she feels decidedly faint.

But he's gone. In the barn, with a chicken here and there, and a quiet, country feel to the air, Esme stands hair-tossed, nude, and alive from head to toe. Is that how you get to hell?

All of a sudden she remembers she was expecting a guest, and she'd better pull herself together and see if her adored Renesmee has arrived yet. She'd better not allow herself to think about what just hapenned until much later, when she is alone.

In the kitchen, Renesmee is sitting on a stool, eating cookies. She's flushed. Why, so is Esme.

"What a warm day!" they exclaim to each other at the same time.

And the man who is also a wolf sets out along the forest path, back the way he came. His long human legs move as smoothly and gracefully as his wolf legs do. He can eat miles and still grin his charming grin, without being affected in the least by his exertions. He could traverse hills and vales and slip through trees like a - well - a forest native. So he does.

His destination is not so very far, and it doesn't take him long to get there. Now... what form should he take? Which is the best to get him through the door? Probably not the wolf. Even if the person he is about to call on likes dogs, his wolf form is twice the size of any dog she will have seen before.

So human incarnation it is.

Knock knock.

Bella Swan opens the door and peeps out, looking surprised, the word, "Nessie?" on her lips.

"Hi there, I'm from the Dial-A-Handyman agency - we received a call from this house for a service? How can I help?" he says, tall, dark and devastating.

"Er, there must be some mistake," she answers.

"I don't think so. Do you have anything that needs drilling?"

He doesn't appear to be carrying a drill, but he does have a tool.

"Nailing? Screwing? Hammering? Fitting? Joining?" he continues. His one tool can do all that.

He's stepping forward as he speaks, and Bella is backing from him, which is allowing him into her house. She barely even knows she's doing it.

Unlike Esme, Bella doesn't get formulaic, though loving sex from a uxorious husband. Bella's husband has been in South America for months. Bella doesn't get _any_ sex. Bella is letting this huge, handsome man walk all the way into her living room and back her up against the arm of the sofa. She has to stop there or she'll tumble over backwards. She tumbles over backwards anyway, and her flailing feet tangle in his legs somehow, and he falls on top of her.

Good Lord! Her breath is expelled with a grunt. He's really heavy. Like, _really_ heavy. Scorching color tints her cheeks as he pushes himself up on his arms and drawls, "Well, this isn't the type of request we usually get, but I'm sure I can accommodate you."

Bella is gulping, and isn't sure she can quite formulate a reply. He's so very _close_, and she can even smell him. Her heart has fluttered all the way up to her larynx, or else she'd tell him to get the hell off her. She really would!

"And Miss?" he adds. "Since this type of house call isn't on our Operating Schedule there'll be no charge."

She's trying to give him a stern stare but she ends up going cross-eyed as his head dips towards her. There's barely time to register that his lips are just luscious before they're on hers. Luscious all right, as well as hot, and wet, and open. It's not a getting-to-know-you, polite first kiss. It's the sort of kiss you give someone you're just about to get naked with. How did this happen, exactly? One minute she's answering a knock at the door, the next minute she's on her back with a tongue in her mouth as well as her own. Her own is kind of half out, actually. It's kind of curling around his, and sneaking into _his_ mouth. Wayward tongue, come back! Nope.

It's not in the least comfortable to be half up, half down on a sofa, legs splayed and hair somehow everywhere. But it's quite a distraction when you're getting the most penetrating kiss you have ever had. The kissing even continues when strong hands slip underneath you and shunt you along, and narrow hips settle between your thighs, and wordless mutterings that sound like pleasure are groaned into your neck.

You (the reader, I mean. Yes, you) may have already figured out that if Bella's husband is Esme's son, he's also Esme's husband's son. Esme's husband brought his boy up to be gentle and considerate with women, and while he is an ardent lover - or he _was_, when he lived in the same country - he wouldn't lie on top of Bella and crush the living air out of her and he wouldn't open his mouth to her neck and take a good, hard bite.

That's what this man is doing, and Bella can't even say, "Stop! My husband will be home soon!" because he wouldn't be home for days even if she called him right now this minute and said it was an emergency. She can't say anything, because her sense of smell has discovered the skin under his ear, and her tongue just has to make sure that what her nose tells her is true. His throat is salty and sweaty and slides under her tongue. And it leads down. His skin is just begging for her mouth, but his t-shirt stops her progress, thankfully.

Before she has the time to get too grateful he heaves himself up and peels the t-shirt off. Under his arms there is inky dark hair, but across his chest there is none. Not even on his nipples. 'Help,' she thinks weakly. Her husband is very pale with reddish brown hair scattered across him. This man is - what is he? He is shifting and wriggling and lifting her as though she weighs no more than a child, and he's lying along the sofa cushions and has pulled her across his hips. Across his groin. Across his - oh yes, that's definitely an erection.

Dutiful wives wouldn't dream of doing this, would they? Bella is a dutiful wife, but she has dreamed, she has dreamed. She has kept her waking dreams to thoughts of her husband, but it has to be said in her sleeping dreams her traitorous subconscious has sometimes come up with a shadowy, indistinct character who may or may not slip into her house barely invited and caress her until she doesn't remember her own name. Her surname, that is.

The man has busied himself fondling her hips and waist, and is moving his hands upwards, over her top. Upwards to her breasts, which are, incidentally, quite something. His hands engulf her completely and she sees his mouth drop open as his fingers move on her. He is enjoying it as much as she is. His tongue peeps out and moistens his lips even as his fingers lift her hem and slide seeking under it. No bra meets his searching fingers, just pink, soft, deserted housewife who hasn't been touched for months. Immediately his head comes up and his mouth is loving her, a nipple caught securely between his lips and lightly tugged into his warm mouth.

Bella is a woman, not a girl, and doesn't need teasing and coaxing and warming up and preparation. She needs action. Barely believing her own daring she reaches for the top button on his pants, then the one beneath and the one beneath, until they're all popped free. He has no underwear.

And as far as standard issue equipment goes, there is nothing standard about his. Well, Bella has only seen one other penis in her life, so she hasn't much to compare this one to. The one she's familiar with is actually really lovely as far as penises go, but imagine the most splendid one you've ever seen, and then imagine one twice as splendid. That still doesn't come close.

The man's splendid penis has a homing device and is pointing directly to where it wants to be. It's very straight, if you're looking at it front on, but in profile it has a slight upwards curve, as if it's happy. Whatever happens when he enters her with that marvel, it's going to feel _incredible_.

Right now, she's wearing jeans, so access is out of the question, and it's something that has to be addressed right away. His hands reach to her waistband and undoes things just as quickly as her hands did his. A mostly sensible woman, she is wearing mostly sensible underwear. At first they appear to be practical and sober navy panties, but as his fingertips slip smoothly up over her her ass to shimmy the jeans off he discovers rows of perky little ruffles.

He smiles, and has to turn her over to look. She's blushing furiously, and colors even more when when he cups her cheeks with appreciative hands. A sudden sharp pain tells her he has either pinched or nipped her. When he bends his head and the tiny pain comes again she knows he did it with his teeth. She frowns sharply over her shoulder at him, but he isn't in the least repentant, though he flips her back over.

"Here?" he asks, his fingers stroking lightly over the fine extra cotton layer between her legs. Does he mean here as in where he is touching her, or here as in on the sofa? She doesn't know quite what he can feel down there, if anything much at all, because her arousal is in no way as prominent as his. But he's in the right general place, that's for sure. Oh yes. He applies a little more pressure, seeking, and she gives away that he's found what he's looking for by arching up involuntarily. She hears a whimper. Did someone let the dog in? Apparently they did, although she doesn't have a dog. She does now, if she only knew it. She has a dog who wants to lick her up one side and back down the other.

And what else do dogs do?

(A momentary sidetrack now. Please forgive me, but I want to explain something)

While they were courting, Bella felt her husband was somewhat cold towards her. He resisted all her attempts at intimacy, and even made her feel a little _slutty_ for desiring him. Since getting a ring on her finger and exchanging vows, he has proved a passionate and thrilling lover, but there is something she has heard of, and read of, and thought of, that he absolutely will not do, because he thinks it's lewd and impersonal. He has told her that it's animalistic, and bestial, and when he makes love to her, he will only do so as long as they face one another, front to front. This thing she so dirtily wonders about during her sinful fantasies is called "doggy-style", and it demands that she have her back to him during the act of love. But it's never going to happen. Or is it?

There's a desk in the living room, an elegant article which her husband has explained is French Provincial, or something, with cabriole legs, and a scalloped apron (whatever that is). It's white and gold. There's a mirror behind it. The mirror has never seen anything like this before - as the lady of the house is now being led to the desk and being made to stand facing it with her hands upon its surface, as a man moves to stand behind her, peeling down her knickers over her ass cheeks while he nuzzles at her neck, watching them both. From what you can see in the reflection, the pretty lady could be fully clothed. Actually though, she's bare from the hips down, and one of the man's hands is coming forwards, softly around her lightly curved belly to hold her steady as his other hand slips over her derriere and between her thighs.

"Spread your legs," he whispers. The woman in the mirror watches as Bella wordlessly complies.

"Stand on your toes," he whispers. What on earth is he going to do?

"Bend forward a little," he whispers. He must have bent his knees a little, because his reflection behind her seems lower.

Then she feels it, she feels him. He has his hand on his cock and the head of it is between her labia, seeking the way in.

"You're going to have to help me out a little here," he murmurs, eyes holding hers in the mirror, and her mouth pops open in an astonished "Oh," as she bends more, spreads more, tilts her pelvis, and then pushes back. He's there, he's right there, he's right _there_. It's stretching and filling and initially awkward, and she has never felt this depth or this angle before. She could just about die. She thinks she might. Is her will up to date? She can only think coherent thoughts until he starts moving, because once he's moving her brain has left the planet. His hands move to pull off her top and hold her bouncing tits; his hands trail over her abdomen and he plays with her clit, but best of all, his hands take her by the hips to hold her stationary as he pumps, and he is muttering, "This is what you look like when you're fucked. Are you watching us? Look at you." A bloom spreads down her throat and across her breasts. She never knew. Meanwhile, his mouth is at her neck, at her ear, at her throat, and sometimes his head is thrown back and his mouth is just open, panting and grunting.

He fucks her until her knees give out, then he moves her to the corner of the couch and bends her over it, with one of her legs hooked up over the arm. Still behind her, he fucks her until she's giddy.

"This is going to kill me. I have to come," he groans finally. "Get on your hands and knees. Oh, Jesus you're beautiful. You are the most beautiful shape, you're exquisite. I can't even tell you how beautiful you are..."

She's on the cushions, hands and knees, like an animal. He's behind her. He's in her.

"Can you come like this?"

Fingers at her clit, he tries so hard, but she can feel him gathering force. Like a volcano, he's going to blow. His balls slap against her, and she can feel an answering force, called urgently by his fingers and by the relentless slide inside her, the place he keeps hitting. She was panting and whimpering, now she starts to keen. "Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop."

It hits her first, and he shouts at how hard she clenches down on him. While the waves crash he keeps going, and when she drops her head, spent, she feels him pulling out, and then wet warmth shoots onto her back, trickling down the side of her waist.

"Stay there, honey, while I clean you up," he urges, and bunches up the t-shirt he'd discarded on the floor, using it to wipe her. He's as gentle as can be now, sitting back down on the sofa smiling, pulling her to kneel across him, curling strands of her long hair around his fingers and pressing fluttering kisses against her still unsteady heartbeat.

"Well, that was nice, and so's this," he murmurs.

She's prepared to allow herself a few more minutes of forgetting to remember that she has a husband to whom she pledged faithfulness, and she sighs, eyes closing, as she's enfolded into a hug against the broad copper chest.

"I should go," the man says, before she has to tell him the same thing, and he stands. He doesn't bother with the t-shirt (it has damp spots) but pulls the jeans on, towering above her where she sits, boneless.

There's no need to say anything else, and what would you say anyway? Bye now, fuck you very much?

Outside the house the man who was a wolf becomes a wolf again, his nose and chin lengthening into a muzzle, a bushy pennant of a tail sprouting from his behind, and his hands reaching to the ground just in time to become paws. The carriage of his head is more upright than your average wolf, as though a gene or two from a prize-winning german shepherd has been blended in there somewhere, or as if he's just actually a little more self-aware and proud than your average wolf. He melts into shadows, padding silently, tongue lolling with the warmness of the late afternoon, and he contemplates the days vigors.

The grandmother will never tell anybody about the man who attacked and molested her in the barn, because to do so would certainly expose her infidelity. The mother will never tell about the man who accosted and coerced her in her own home, because to do so would certainly expose her infidelity. And the girl will never tell, because she quite liked him, and she wouldn't want her father and grandfather to go hunting him with a big gun.

And the manwolf? He liked them all, but he particularly liked the girl. She was pretty and bold, and he wants to ask her out on a date. You can't reasonably date someone while gratifying the unmet sexual needs of their mother and grandmother. It's not nice, so the activities with the mother and the grandmother are never to be repeated.

As far as the girl goes, he'll take it slow. He'll do nothing but kiss her for the first few weeks, and he won't steal any bases. She's a sensuous little thing and it will test his discipline, but it will do him good, and a few weeks' abstinence will make him feel new again. New for her.

And since he knows where she lives, it's the easiest thing in the world to be casually around, and to run into her one morning entirely by "accident".

"You!" she exclaims in astonishment and the saucy little miss knows exactly who he is (well, not really, she doesn't, but she recalls the circumstances of their meeting) and she remembers that he didn't take her when he could have, and she is both flattered and piqued.

They talk, and they talk and his hands stay resolutely in his pockets, and they meet "accidently" on other occasions, always in a public place, and it's not long before she says one afternoon, "My family are having a party. Would you like to come?"

Oh yes, he would like to come, but not to her family's party. The right time, and the right place, he'll come all right. He'll come all night.

"I'd love to attend," he answers.

And there they all are when he arrives, her extended family, crowded around the one jewel in the family crown, their adored Renesmee. If any of the men suspect that he has touched her, they'll tear him apart. He wouldn't be easily torn apart, but the fight wouldn't be pleasant.

Renesmee makes the introductions, and he is regarded warily by a father, two uncles, and a grandfather. Really, the father and grandfather should be shaking the wolfman's hand again and again. Since they returned from their trips, the two husbands have found their wives horny, experimental and assertive. Quite wild and delicious, too. The two husbands have had their lights fucked out, repeatedly. In the post-coital stupor that has lasted weeks they try to muster frowns at him, but he can look back at them guilt-free, and with the noblest of intentions. By now he knows he wants to marry Renesmee, and be with her for always.

Then two aunties are face-to-face with him, and they're cautious, too. Yes, it's nice that Nessie has a boyfriend, yes, Christ he's handsome, yes, all right, if Nessie's happy they're happy, and will he be at all the family gatherings? Because _Christ _he's handsome.

Then the mother and the grandmother.

"Bella, Esme, this is Jacob," Renesmee enthuses, all unaware.

It's another hot day. Bella and Esme both flush, squirming inwardly and assailed by memories. They can't exchange knowing glances, because neither knows about the other. Each of them thinks though, that darling Renesmee is one lucky, _lucky_ girl.

"How nice to meet you," they both nod.

"My pleasure," says Jacob, sincerely.

.

.

.

Ridiculous, I warned you. This story doesn't bear scrutiny, I know that. He didn't use any protection, I know. (Somehow I wasn't prepared to write that a wolf went running around in the forest night and day with condoms tied to his leg). I just wanted to write what might happen after the big bad wolf "gobbled" (snigger) the grandmother, and then "gobbled" (snigger) the girl - wouldn't he go straight around and "gobble" (snigger) the mother too?

And you know where she says, "Why Grandmother, what big eyes you have?" and the wolf says, "All the better to see you with my dear"? What if the girl said. "Why Grandmother, what a big dick you have?" and the "grandmother" said, "All the better to f**k you with my dear." (snigger)

I am a twelve year old boy. No I'm not.


	14. Chapter 14 These Shoes Are Made For Danc

Characters belong to Stephenie. Story is probably in the public domain. Shoes belong to Alice.

**These Shoes Are Made For Dancing**

Summer vacation at my dad's - should be okay, I guess. I haven't been over to WA for years, but I remember it as damp and green, and kinda quiet. That's really all that springs to mind.

I'll be glad to get out of Phoenix, for sure. Anybody with any money has a house in the hills they disappear to for as long as they can afford it over summer, it's so freakin' hot. Either that or you spend every spare minute of the day in a swimming pool.

And there's another thing, besides the temperature. Another reason to be glad I'm going away for a while. My Mom has a romance going that's progressed to the stage where her - what do I call him? Suitor? Significant other? - is staying over nights, and I could really do without the cheesy way they look at one another. I know Mom's serious about him because she's never even introduced me to a guy she's dated, never mind let one of them in the house. She's obviously decided I'm old enough and he's enough of a sure thing that it's time we three were all acquainted. Fair enough, but the other morning they showered together, and it wasn't just showering and now I'm scarred for life. I heard them _do_ it in there, for heaven's sake!

So when I got the offer to go to my dad's I was eager to the point that I think Mom's feelings may have been a little hurt. You'd think she'd look forward to some romantic interludes without worrying that her poor daughter was in the house and being aurally exposed to the stuff of nightmares. I'm certainly looking forward to interludes of no parental dalliances.

Saturday afternoon I touch down at Port Angeles, and it's cooler by a good thirty degrees. Arizona's heat makes me so lethargic I become inert, and all summer I'm not far off dead. Washington: 1, Phoenix: 0.

Dad's at the airport to pick me up and we finish the chit chat in the time it takes to say, "How are you?" "Good." "How was your flight?" "Fine." "Your mother's well?" "Yeah, she's great."

When I was last here three years ago, on the way back to his place Dad said we'd stop in at the diner for something to eat. I soon discovered he stopped in at the diner most days, and he said it was so that he had a visible presence in the community. That was plausible to a fourteen year old, and I accepted it without question until I saw in the fridge and the cupboards that there was no food, and after some checking out of Dad's dietary habits I found out he couldn't cook.

"So, we going by the diner today?" I ask, not relishing the prospect of all that grease, but starting to feel hungry.

"No, we're going to eat at home," he answers, a little self-consciously I notice, and I wonder if he's bought some of those frozen ready-cook meals.

We arrive at his house, which is weatherboard and weatherbeaten and really nice, and he carries my bag up for me. To my surprise the room doesn't look exactly the same as it did three years ago. The walls have been painted, there are a few pictures hung about, and a strand of fairy lights draped along the picture rail. The bed linen is new - and purple. Oh yes?

"It's a bit different in here. I hope you like it," Charlie says, and I nod.

"Yeah Dad, it's cool."

He goes downstairs and I hear him in the kitchen as I unpack my stuff, putting things in drawers, and finding hangers in the closet. I have no idea what could have happened to the bedroom, because my Dad is the last person to be watching homeshows and getting inspired to do a little decorating.

And then the plot thickens as a delicious aroma starts wafting up the stairs and through my open door. Is that - ?

Dad's standing there over the kitchen table, an oven mitt on either hand, grinning his face off. In front of him is a dish of home-made lasagne.

"No way!" I say, with a disbelieving snort.

"I hope this is going to be all right," he's muttering, as he fishes around in the cutlery drawer. "I followed the instructions..."

"Dad, it's _amazing_. I love lasagne," I assure him a few minutes later. "Did you make this from scratch? You'll have to give me your recipe."

"Well, actually - " he starts, and the phone rings.

He's gone through to the living room as he talks in a low voice so that I can't hear what he's saying, and anyway I'm busy trying to finish my plateful in order that I can have seconds, when I happen to glance up at him.

My mouth falls open mid-chew, and my brain grinds to a halt.

He's got a look on his face. And by that, I mean a _look_. I just flew over a thousand miles to get away from a parent gooey-eyed in love - and now here's another one? You've got to be kidding me!

Charlie finishes on the phone and comes back to sit across from me at the table. He doesn't quite meet my eye, and he's blushing. God, he's too old to blush. I mean, he's about forty.

"Is there anything you need to tell me Dad?" I ask, and he clears his throat and rubs at the hair on the back of his neck, and raises and lowers his eyebrows a couple of times before he says, "Well, no."

I give him about thirty seconds.

"So, when did you develop your interest in interior design?" I ask. "My room really is looking nice. Great color co-ordination. And some time over the last three years you went to cooking classes?"

He takes about another thirty seconds, but then he obviously decides to come clean.

"There's, ah, someone I've become friends with lately. She helped with choosing things for your bedroom. And she made this lasagne for you - I just heated it up," he admits.

"_Friends_?" I press.

He shrugs a little. "Maybe more than friends. Her name is Sue and she'd love to meet you. But Bella, if you're not comfortable with that - "

"Dad, it's been a long time for you. I'm glad you've found someone. And hey - she's a great cook! Way better than Mom, although the people who make tinned dog food are better cooks than Mom," I say. "That was her on the phone, right? Did you ask her to come over?"

Charlie is so relieved, I can just see it. "No, not tonight, since you just got here, but I will soon. She has a daughter around your age, and a son a little younger. Maybe you and Leah can be friends."

"A stepsister? And a stepbrother? Siblings after all these years as an only child?"

I'm teasing because I'm a little shocked.

"No, God, Bella, calm down. Things haven't gotten to that stage and I don't know if they ever will. Her husband died a few years ago, and she's not really considering marrying again, and anyway, neither am I. You're not going to have a stepmother..." Charlie says hastily.

Well thank goodness for that.

He never was much of a talker, so he hovers for a while as I wash up, and he dries and puts things away, and then he says there's a game on he's going to watch and asks if I want to watch with him. I tell him I'm kind of tired and I might just have a bath and read a bit, and that's the first day and night of my vacation. Out of nowhere three new people seem to have joined what was my little nuclear pairing of two, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Dad looked goofy and cute when he was talking to Sue on the phone, so she must be making him happy. I just hope she's nice.

Only a couple of days later she turns up and I get to see her for myself. There's a knock on the door, and when I open it there's this woman standing there, holding a casserole dish. It's got to be Sue. Don't tell me she's cooking most of his meals! Haven't you ever heard of feminism, lady? We play this flickering eye game where she looks down at the dish and I stare at her, then she looks up and catches me and I look away, and when I look back she's the one who's staring.

"You must be Bella. I've really been looking forward to meeting you," she says.

She's a similar height and build to Mom, but she's Native American, with long dark hair and coppery skin. She looks young to be a widow, and I guess it's sad that her husband died, but there are lonely, vulnerable men around like my Dad, just ripe for predatory single women to sink claws into them...

I shouldn't really start off thinking like that. I should give her the benefit of the doubt. It's not like she's after my Dad's money after all. If she was she'd need to prepare herself for a meagre life!

"Would you like to come in?" I offer politely, although I don't think I'm really ready to make small talk with my father's - aherm! - ladyfriend just yet.

"No, thanks, I'll head back home. I just wanted to drop this off. I don't know if you'd already started on cooking tonight, but this can go into the freezer. Don't worry about the dish - I can collect it anytime," she says quickly. "It's lovely to finally put a face to the name, although of course, I've seen plenty of pictures of you. Your father talks about you a lot," she adds.

"Thanks. He's mentioned you, too. And your son and daughter? He said maybe Leah and I could meet up sometime?"

The mention of her daughter's name makes her look more awkward than she looked turning up here holding out food like she's dispensing alms for the poor.

"Sure. Leah's a bit down at the moment - she recently broke up with her boyfriend. Maybe a new friend is just what she needs," she says, not sounding like she means it.

A few nights later it's occurred to me that Charlie hasn't spent a night at Sue's, and Sue hasn't spent a night at Charlie's. When I broach the subject he goes _maroon_.

"Oh, God, it's all right, Charlie. I know about the birds and the bees, you know. It's okay, really," I assure him. "Just keep the noise down."

Charlie purses his lips and nods, and then every few nights I have to endure lying in bed with very soft, suppressed _mating_ sounds coming from the bedroom next door, just like I had to back in Phoenix. Washington: 0. Arizona: 0. Lord save me.

But there is one possible star on the horizon. Because I don't know anyone here, my days have been occupied with reading, going for walks, going for drives, writing emails to friends back home and more reading, all on my own. I haven't exactly been lonely, but a little conversation wouldn't go amiss. I'm pretty keen when finally Sue decides to introduce me to Leah and Seth.

It takes about five minutes to understand why she was so reticent.

Leah is gorgeous, intelligent, incisive, and angry. She is so fucking angry her glare could halt a charging bull elephant because it turns out her boyfriend left her for her cousin and she is in no state to make friends. Seth, on the other hand, is sweet and a little quiet, and has three pimples and is fourteen years old.

That takes me back to square one, but at least I'm not sweltering in the Arizona heathaze, I tell myself. Back to the books. There's a library an hours' drive away, and Dad has borrowed a truck I can drive whenever I want. Forks edges ahead of Phoenix.

One day I'm in the next town, Port Angeles, when I spy a fabric shop, and I get an idea. Sue has left her mark on my Dad's house by decorating my bedroom - and it's not like I'm going to just hand him over without any sort of a statement - I could make my own mark and do some decorating myself!

Curtains are what spring to mind, with my limited knowledge of what constitutes home decor. I'm standing round in front of rolls of fabric under a sign that says "Home Furnishing" with absolutely no idea of what I'm even looking at, when a girl comes up to me.

"You look lost. Can I help?"

"I need curtains," I shrug.

"Net? Sheer? Opaque? Insulated?" she says, and very quickly clues in to the fact that I don't have a clue.

"What room?" she asks, obviously deciding to take it more slowly.

"Kitchen?" I say, in such an indecisive way it comes out as a question.

"Kitchen, okay, good. What color are the counters and cupboards? Where are the windows? Over the sink? Do you have any measurements?"

She's professional and I'm hopeless.

"Where do you live?" she asks eventually. "We have a service who'll come out and measure, and then we can make them for you."

She's kind. She's about my age, and very friendly. When I tell her where Charlie's place is, she exclaims in surprise, "That's near me! I could do the measuring for you! What's your name? I'm Alice."

Things progress at a rapid place. She's organized to come over and measure every window at my Dad's place before I can so much as blink, and I leave with the dizzy feeling that she's going to perform an extreme makeover on the entire house.

Sure enough, she turns up that evening with a tape measure and gets me to hold one end while she draws out the other, making notes and talking so much I don't see how she could achieve anything.

"Come see me in the store tomorrow, Bella, and we'll talk about textures," she coos. "I already have lots of ideas."

I bet she does. I head in there the next day, and she arranges a break and takes me out for coffee. She bombards me to the point that I am overwhelmed enough to agree to anything.

"So you're here for vacation? Do you know there's a masked ball on next weekend in Forks? Costumes? I bet you thought nothing ever happened here! You have to come, I'll get you a ticket."

"I don't have anything to wear," I say faintly. "And I'm more the hermit type."

"I'll dress you. Leave it all to me. I'll come over on Saturday afternoon. I won't be able to actually arrive there with you because I'll have to go back home to fix up my boyfriend's outfit, but I'll meet you there. Please come - you have to!"

Later, I'm sitting with Dad, who's in one of his quiet moods, when he hmphs into his moustache, and says, "You know, Bella..."

I wait, because it sounds as though he wants to say something.

"You know, it's nice to have you around. You could live here if you wanted to. With me. I mean, move over here from your mother's and go to school and all. If you wanted to."

Like, _what_? He's suggesting I relocate? I'm going to have to think about this in some depth, and not right now - some time later when I'm alone. He hmphs again, and I need to say something.

"Do you know about this masquerade party thing on Saturday night?" I croak, off-topic.

"Hmph, yes. I mentioned to Sue that maybe you and Leah could go together, but... you've met Leah now, haven't you? I'm glad you've met someone else, Bella. Alice, did you say? She must be one of the Cullen girls. Their father's the emergency doctor at the hospital. It sounds like a fun evening - you should go."

I really don't want to. A _ball_, for chrissakes?

Besides, the longer I'm at Charlie's, the more I notice things like cobwebs in the corners, and dust on the skirting boards, and the back of the toilet being dirty. Everywhere is this general, light layer of grunge that needs dealing with. Charlie doesn't do it because Charlie doesn't see it, but damned if Sue's going to think it's _her_ job to clean up after _my_ dad. He really does need me around.

"I'll be on duty there Saturday night, Bells. It's a fine opportunity for you to have a night out," Dad's saying, and really, I was planning a night in - cleaning.

I have to go back to the fabric shop during the week to choose colors for the curtains, although once I get there Alice makes it perfectly clear that she's already chosen for me, and I didn't even need to agree. She's a steamroller.

"And for the ball, I've decided on your outfit. I've already started making it. Not that I've been perving on you or anything, but I can see what size you are. When can we have a fitting?" she says.

"I'm pretty busy the rest of the week," doing exactly nothing.

"I'll guess then. I'm good at it," she answers brightly, not put off in the slightest. "Do you have flesh-colored underwear? I mean like_ your_ flesh, Bella. _Ivory_."

"Not really."

"Well, go down to the department store now and buy some."

Does she have Aspergers? She is simply not picking up that I don't want to go, but somehow I have the impression that I don't actually have a choice.

Then Saturday comes and she arrives at the door with armfuls of floaty, colorful stuff draped about the place and I let her in, curious at last. Why the special request lingerie? Is she envisaging something transparent?

I've showered, and I stand there nervously in bra and panties, while Alice pulls a bit of flimsy nothing over my head. It's shapeless and floor length, a sort of petticoat with shoulder straps, in fire engine red. She has another one the same, in orange. Then cerise. Then yellow. Then she winds long swathes of all of them around my shoulders and down each arm, securing them at my wrists. Bits trail off, wafting about me when I raise my arms.

"You're from Phoenix, right?" she says. "You're the firebird."

She twists strands of colored fabrics into my hair, and lets the ends dangle over my back and chest. She binds more of them around me, so that the formless garment becomes suddenly tight across my breasts, around my waist, and over my hips. I'm not sure what I look like - perhaps living flames. She even has shoes for me - they're bright red, with heels to give me elevation. I'll barely be able to walk, let alone dance, but right now I feel like a vision. She draws an outline of my lips and fills them in with what surely must be ruby blood, and gives me a golden eyemask.

"I'll see you there, Bella darling!" she calls.

There are two hours to go. I daren't move, in case I upset some part of her marvellous creation and it falls off, and I'm left standing there in my ivory underwear. I inspect my fingernails, which seems safe enough. That takes about twenty seconds, even with lavishing twice the time on them that I normally would.

I mince to the refrigerator, and then realize that I can actually walk quite freely. Clever Alice has cut the dress lengths generously enough to allow me some leg room. Just as well, since I have to get my legs a fair way apart to climb into my truck, and that's my only mode of transport.

Reading takes up another hour, and watching the clock takes up another twenty minutes, and then I figure I can leave. I don't want to be early, but Alice has said, "Oh, I'm never late anywhere because I don't want to miss a thing." Although that's not a philosophy I've ever adopted, it beats sitting around the house vaguely feeling like I should be dusting something, but knowing if I did I'd ruin my outfit.

Alice gave me detailed instructions to the venue which I find without any trouble at all, as there's only one road in town that leads there. She said things like, past the big spooky tree that's stretching its arms out, and round the bend shaped like a question mark and it's the place with the windows full of party lights.

There are already plenty of cars there, and I park, and nervously head on in.

I needn't have worried. A pretty marionette appears instantly and twirls about me, taking me to get a drink, finding me a seat, introducing me in a lilting musical Alice-voice to her Harlequin, Jasper.

I spot Leah, just by the blazing way her head is set on her shoulders. She has come as some sort of animal, in a tight, silvery colored one-piece suit, with pointed ears and a tail. I'm a little worried for her boyfriend's new girlfriend, with Leah looking the way she is. I'm a little worried for anybody who tries to stand in her way, quite frankly.

And then out of the crush of bodies, and the rising swirl of the music someone comes towards me. It's a guy, in a kind of a tunic, belted at the hips, with trousers underneath and boots, and he has a sword at his side and a circlet of gold on his head. A prince. His mouth and jaw and cheekbones - every bit of his face that's visible beneath his mask - are lovely. He has reddish hair sticking waywardly all over the place, like even his own command couldn't subdue it, and he's tall and slender, and he's heading straight for me.

"I saw you come in, and I wanted to talk to you," he says, holding out a hand and drawing me to my feet. "Are you a fire spirit?"

"A fire _bird_. A phoenix," I answer, allowing myself to be pulled up.

"Can I get you a drink? Not that you need quenching," he says, and there's a table only a few yards away, covered in bottles and icebuckets and glasses and tumblers.

"I don't know you, do I?" he asks, ladelling some sparkling beverage with fruit in it out of a bowl and into a glass for me.

"No. I'm wearing a masque. That's more or less the idea," I reply, and gulp the drink. I think it's got forty gallons of vodka in it, and maybe the juice of half a freshly squeezed orange. And fifty gallons of brandy, plus a chopped apple. Too much of this and I'll be sorry.

"Well, that's taken care of the refreshments. Would you like to dance?" the prince asks me, and I look hesitantly towards the centre of the room. The music is very old-fashioned, and people are doing formal dancing where they hold on to each other.

"I don't know the steps. I never learned this stuff," I say. "Besides, I'm kind of not that great at dancing."

"Don't worry about it," he smiles. "I'll lead. This is way easier than modern free form stuff, honestly. No-one can look graceless, or - "

I've managed to look graceless within moments, and he nods like he's impressed.

"Okay, only the most rare and talented performers are able to de-co-ordinate themselves. Congratulations."

It seems he wants to keep talking to me, and that's fine by me. In the spirit of the evening we don't discuss anything personal. He asks who my favorite film director is, and we go from there.

"I love Tarantino's immediacy but the gratuity just gets - well, gratuitous. Same with the Coen brothers. I'll watch anything by Burton or Luhrmann just for what they look like. I like things that are arthouse and European and dense..."

"What about British films?"

We talk and twirl, with his hold on me firm enough that he prevents any stumbling on my part, and yet so light that it's unobtrusive.

Off in the distance somewhere Columbine and Harlequin spin under the chandeliers, and I catch a glimpse of Leah too, dancing with her brother. Seth is all in black, and he's supposed to be a ninja, but he's also the cutest fourteen year old I've ever seen and he makes me feel like I could have a future as a cradle-snatcher. Leah has such a sinewy strong body and amazing way of moving that even on the dance floor she looks like she's prowling.

The prince and I seem to have a tacit agreement that we won't mention names, so even though I'd like to ask which one is Sam, the guy who dumped Leah, I feel as though I can't.

My feet are starting to hurt a little now, with the unaccustomed pressure on the balls of my feet from wearing heels, and I tell the heir to the throne that I need a rest. That's his cue to leave me somewhere and go off and find someone else to hang out with if he wants to, but he doesn't go anywhere.

"Sure, sure, let's sit down. Or would you like to go outside?" he asks.

Somewhere outside my Dad is either sitting his patrol car waiting for any signs of trouble, or walking around the building looking for signs of trouble. I don't know how protective he feels of me, but I decide this is not the time to find out.

"Inside is fine," I answer.

The whole evening passes in a blur of smiling and laughing and conversation. Alice pops by and drags me away to giggle, saying, "You seem to be getting on with _someone_ rather well," which I can't deny.

Leah comes past too, and shakes her head darkly. "That's how it starts," she mutters.

Later I see her with a really tall guy, when the music has changed, and she is winding herself around him. She must have either found herself a distraction, or she's hoping Sam will see her and get jealous. There's always the slightest chance she might actually like this person, but there's no real reason to think that that might be the case.

My prince continues to pay me attention, and even admits with a laugh that he's monopolizing me. It's true.

"Royalty itself is a bit of a monopoly, isn't it?" I ask him. "Monopolizing on rule."

He smirks, and the sprinkles of lights cast by the chandeliers play in his hair. "Another dance, Firebird?" he asks.

I would, and I stand to join him but after a few steps I realize I've developed a blister at the back of one foot, where the heel strap of my borrowed shoe is digging into me.

When I exclaim and stagger against him he looks down with concern.

"My foot hurts!" I almost whine.

I sit again and he kneels at my feet, gently easing my shoe off.

"Lucky for you when I was a very young prince, with a personal tutor to teach me diplomacy and swordfighting I also learned medicine," he says gravely. "This is a grievous wound, but a bandaid should hold you together until I can get you to the hospital for stitches. Wait here and I'll see if I can find a first aid kit."

Almost as soon as he's gone there's a commotion at the main entrance, and I stand with one shoe still on, balancing with the toes of the other foot.

Three people have come in, and none of them are masked, although they're dressed like they knew it was a themed event. One's in head-to-toe denim, one's all in leather like a bikie, and the girl with them is in a sort of hippie, Janis Joplin get-up. Are they gatecrashers or are they just late? They head straight for the table with the alcohol, and grab bottles, drinking thirstily.

"Well well, what a nice kiddies' party," Blueboy sneers, with red wine running down his chin. Surely he can't be friends with anyone here? He was obviously drunk before he arrived, and he looks a little deranged.

"I am the Pirate King!" he declares loudly. "Who's going to be my pretty tonight? You, Marigold, come and make me feel welcome."

To my horror, I'm the one he's got his eye on. He lurches over and grabs my arm, but my father has appeared, and is standing at my side.

"Now, son. This is a private function, and you should be on your way."

The newcomer looks my dad up and down dismissively. "Good costume, dude, but your badge is crooked. You don't worry me. I'll leave when I'm ready."

Charlie seems perfectly at ease, which amazes me.

"It's not a costume son, and I can arrest you for criminal trespass, which is a gross misdemeanor carrying a maximum penalty of six months prison and a five thousand dollar fine. Just try me," he says, pleasantly. You wouldn't be fooled for an instant if you could see the look in his eyes, though. They're like steel.

The denim guy with a blond ponytail seems to be considering his options.

In the meantime, though, his friends aren't being quite so sensible. There's a loud crash as the girl throws a bottle at the wall, smashing it.

"DJ! Your music is shit! Play something louder!" she screeches.

"Bella, get out of here before it turns ugly. I'll see you at home," Dad orders me under his breath, as he takes the handcuffs off his belt. Another police officer is approaching us, but I can see there's only two of them there.

There isn't time for me to notice much else, because the third of the gatecrashers suddenly leaps on the back of the other officer, knocking him down. All hell breaks loose when a couple of guys go for the dreadlocked leather dude and grab him by his arms, but the girl pulls a knife.

"How about you just let my friend go?" she purrs, and Blueboy produces a knife, too.

This is getting ugly, all right. I guess Dad's got an instinct for knowing when situations are going to go bad. I don't want to leave him there, but he's trained, and he's armed and I'm neither.

Not that I get to weigh it all up in my mind, because Leah has abruptly taken my wrist, and she has her other hand clamped around Seth's right arm.

"Are you fucking stupid? We need to get out of here," she hisses at me, and pulls me unceremoniously towards what must be a back entrance. I've only got one shoe on so I'm awkward and limping, and she keeps swearing at me. I crane around trying to see Alice, and to catch a last glimpse of my prince, but it's pandemonium in there now.

"How did you get here? Which is your car?" Leah's saying, and she sounds mad.

"Red chevy," I mutter.

"Billy Black's truck? Right. Get in, put your foot down, and don't stop until you're home."

I try to thank her, but she interrupts.

"Listen, Lily-Cheeks, you're a dick. Did you think that was some sort of Broadway show back there? Don't thank me, thank the fact that my Mom is hooking up with your Dad. If he couldn't keep his mind on the job because his precious daughter was gawping at an armed trespass like it was Entertainment Tonight, he could get seriously injured. And then my Mom would be _not happy_."

Leah is literally shoving me into the cab of the truck. Seth is standing around looking freaked.

"My mother is a _widow_. She already lost someone. Charlie getting a knife stuck in him would just about _finish_ her," Leah rants.

I do as she's ordered me to - I put my foot down, and I speed all the way back to Charlie's hose, safe in the knowledge that no-one will come after me. They'll all be heading to the disturbance at the party.

It's not long after midnight when I get home, and only about half an hour later, which is how long it took me to untie myself from my lovely flame dress, Charlie's home too. He looks tired, but he's intact.

"Idiots. They were high," he sighs, as he sinks into an armchair.

"What happened? Are you okay? Is everyone okay?" I ask anxiously.

"No-one was hurt, Bella. Our back-up arrived within minutes - and anyway, those fools were outsiders. In towns like this, people stick together. Those hoodlums were disarmed by locals, and the whole thing was over in minutes. Now they're facing serious charges. I'm still glad you got out of there, though, because things could have taken a turn for the worse. I've seen so little of you... I couldn't bear anything happening to you... "

He does his hmph noises into his moustache, and I'm getting the hang of it now. He does it when he's revealed something he feels self-conscious about.

I'm just so glad he's okay. I fuss over him a little, until he's embarrassed - but really, I've only had a dad for the past couple of weeks. I can fuss a little, can't I?

There's another thing I feel a little fussed about too, but I don't want to mention it to Charlie. I got rushed out of there so fast I didn't even see what happened to the Prince, and I missed the big Unmasking that was supposed to happen at the end of the night. Probably everyone else there knew who he was, but I didn't. I'm so disappointed I could scream, until it occurs to me Alice probably knows everyone here in Po-Dunk. How many tall red-haired guys can one small town have? Am I possessed of enough courage to ask her who he was? Will she be upset with me about the shoe?

On Sunday I go back to the hall to see if I can find the missing article of footwear, but the place is all locked up. First thing Monday morning I'm there again, and a kind lady lets me in.

"I was here on Friday night - " I begin, but I don't get any further.

"You were here at the _dance_? When the _business_ happened with those horrible _people_? Did you _see_ them?" she gushes. This is accompanied by head shakes and tut-tuts.

"And _who_ are you? You're from out-of-_town_, aren't you? I've lived here all my _life_ and I know everybody. You have a familiar _look_ about you, though. Oh,_ I_ know! You're Chief _Swan's_ daughter - of _course_!"

I try again, but I only manage, "Yes, I - I - I - " and it sounds as though I have a bad stutter.

"I'm Mrs _Cope_, and isn't that a funny contradiction, because honestly, I don't _know_ how I cope!"

Then I get her opinion of events, some local history, a smattering of her life story, and a generous insight into her worldview. Her inflections are all over the place. She emphasizes at least one word in every sentence, sometimes several. It's like she's invented an eleven tone version of the English language. It's about twenty minutes before I can explain what I've come there for.

"A _shoe_? No, I got here on Sunday to clean _up_, do the _sweeping_ you know, and a couple of men from nearby who _volunteer_ came in as well to pack up the tables and stack the chairs, and _nobody_ mentioned a _shoe_. If one turns up, I'll have it sent to the _police_ station, shall I?"

After I get out of there, I head straight to Alice's shop to give her the bad news.

Strangely, she's not surprised, and she's not in the least bothered that she lent me a pair of shoes and I lost one of them.

"Oh, I've got a feeling it'll turn up," she shrugs.

I hover, hands in pockets, biting my lip and trying to summon courage to ask about my mysterious dancing partner, when unfortunately she says, "Was there anything else Bella? There's kind of a couple of people waiting at the counter... I really should get to them. We'll get together soon, won't we?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," I assure her. Damn! I have to leave Forks, and I don't know whether I'll even see her again or not, but she's too busy for me to tell her right now.

At the library I return a couple of books, wondering if it's worth getting any more out. I've only got two more days here now, then it's back to Momtown, and the ReneePhil love machine. In the end, I just get in my truck somewhat despondently, and return to Charlie's.

When there's a knock on the door, I'm making meatballs for Charlie's dinner, and my hands are covered in a sticky mess of ground beef, onion, parsley and flour. I grab a cloth and wipe one hand clean enough to turn the door handle.

There are only two people it could be. One: it's Sue, saying "Hello, Bella darling, I'm just dropping something around for your dinner to save you the bother of cooking. It's fish, just the way Charlie likes it with oregano and lemon and chili." And I'll say, "Oh lovely. Big fat trout."

Or two: it's Leah, saying, "Listen Lily-cheeks, you're a dick," and I'll say, "Yes, I heard you the first time, when you saved me from jumping headfirst into a brawl, and potentially upsetting your mother. Only you missed something out. I think you also meant to call me Lame-ass."

There's a third possibility of course. Mrs _Cope_.

But actually, it's none of those. It's the lost shoe. I blink rapidly, and then notice the hand holding it. It's not actually floating in mid-air - my gaze travels up an arm to a shoulder, then higher, to a head with unruly red hair. I blink a few more times, because this has got to be my prince. He's got the cheekbones. And you know how the word prince in fairy tales is so often preceded by the word handsome? Boy, does he deserve it.

"Hey," he says, smiling, but the smile fades when I don't respond. Around Mrs Cope I developed a speech impediment, around handsome princes it appears that I become a selective mute.

"It's you, right?" he asks, uncertainly.

"Uh," I answer.

"You're the firebird? And this is your shoe?"

"Uh." It's easier to talk to Leah, I swear. It's also easier to talk to handsome princes when they have masks on, so you can't see the handsome.

"My name's Edward."

God, I've gotta give the poor guy a break. "I'm Bella."

I hold my hand out for him to shake, and realize belatedly that it's covered in meatball mixture. He doesn't notice until the stuff is all over his hand, and then he grimaces.

"Uh," I say, brightly, and this is so not how I envisaged a meeting with him would run.

"Well, anyway. Just thought I'd return the shoe. Nice to see you," he says, looking bemused, and he turns to go.

Don't leave! It's about time I remembered how to talk. Think, brain, _think_!

"Would you like to come in and wash your hands?"

Praise Jupiter, I said something relevant, and containing syllables.

"Oh - yes, actually. Thanks."

I show him in, and my brain returns, sort of.

"I'm making meatballs. It's a special recipe. Not everyone gets the meatball greeting, you know, it's reserved for select dignitaries. You're actually the only person alive in mainland America who's ever received it."

Oh brain, _this_ is what you come up with?

"Well, that's certainly an honor, then. Shouldn't there be a press conference and photographers to commemorate the event?"

He's joining in with my idiocy, bless him. He was well brought up.

"No, we keep these things low-key. The recipe is a specially guarded secret, you see. We couldn't have some spy disguised as a reporter rushing in with a spatula and scraping a sample of the mixture from your fingers, and then analyzing it. They might put it on WikiLeaks."

She said what? Gag me with a spoon. Gag me with a boulder three feet in diameter. Gag me and put me in a barrel and throw me off Niagara Falls, I am such a dick. Leah was right.

But Prince Edward grins at me from the kitchen sink, wipes his hands, and says, "Do you need me to help? I'm a kitchen whizz, honestly."

And he stays. The stupid conversation continues until it's epically ridiculous, and still he stays. Charlie rings and says he'll be late, and Edward has dinner with me, and he's still there at eleven o'clock.

My cheeks hurt from laughing at him, and I have had the best night of my life, bar none. Forks: Heaps. Phoenix: Zilch. And then somewhere along the line when I was interrogating Edward as to how he tracked me down he admitted that Alice is his sister, and she told him how to find me. I decide I will give her my firstborn child.

But the real world comes crashing down around my ears, when he asks, "So, do you have any free time this weekend? You want to meet up?"

This weekend I'll be doing laundry, reading, eating, blah blah blah. Nothing much, so yes, I'll have a lot of free time. Trouble is, I'll be back in Arizona. I mentally rip up my plane ticket, and cancel the booking. I mentally ring my mother and inform her, "Oh, hey Mom, I might stay here a few more days, if that's okay. Gonna hang with Dad a little longer."

Edward is watching me expectantly, waiting for a response.

I mentally ring my mother back, "Oh, hey Mom, actually, I'm kinda planning to stay at least another week or three."

He has started to look mildly anxious while I mentally speak to my mother. He might be holding his breath.

I need to imaginary-speak to her again. "Mom, Forks is all kinds of cool and I've made a coupla friends and the high school is really, really good, and Dad's said he'd like for me to move here and live with him, and so, yeah, that's what I'm going to do."

And now Dad's doing an imaginary hmph, while looking very pleased.

Having settled things with both parents, in _my_ mind at least, I can finally answer Edward, who is frowning and looking furtively at the door, like if I take any longer he's going to make a run for it.

"This weekend would be great. I'm not busy at all. I'd love to meet up," I tell him, and that beautiful boy positively beams. It's gorgeous.

And Leah was right again. That's how it starts.

.

.

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	15. Chapter 15 What's In A Name?

**Summary: Charlie has locked himself in the attic, conducting experiments. When he's called away on civic duty, his daughter Isabella steps in. On Charlie's return, it looks as to him as though she has achieved something remarkable, and he announces it to all and sundry. What is the king going to say about all this?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.**

**What's In A Name?**

There once was a man who was quite clever, but not clever enough.

Having heard of the magical science of alchemy, he went to the bookseller's and bought an ancient, dusty and never-read tome entitled Clandinestus. From thence he visited the Ephemera Emporium, procuring ampoules and beakers. After some reading and some inquiries, and some dark dealings of a dubious nature, he sent away to the East for a mysterious compound which arrived contained in a clay vial with a wax stopper, wrapped in an oiled chamois and secured in a sandalwood box. Then lighting candles in his attic study to see by one night, he set about some poorly-conceived experimentation.

"Measure this, pour that, heat that, stir this," he said to himself.

Very little happened, other than a few bubbles appearing on the surface of the oily and dense mixture he had concocted in a glass tube, and was holding over a flame.

"Not enough, too much, it's all wrong, start again," he muttered.

He locked himself in this room for days, garrett window shut, eating only the flat bread that was slipped under the door every few hours.

Occasional knocks sounded and when he heard them he responded by gruffling. If he didn't hear them due to his fierce concentration, he made no reply.

On the third day he caused a small explosion.

"Charlie, what the hell was that? Open this door right now!" a voice shouted, and the man complied, warm goo slithering down his forehead and kept out of his eyes by his eyebrows.

"You've been shut away long enough. What are you up to in here?" the owner of the voice queried in a peremptory tone, entering the room and conducting a visual examination. Her searching gaze was met by various items of investigative methodological apparatus and a fair bit of debris - specifically, broken glass and puddles of liquid.

"Be chary of the shards," Charlie said helpfully, "and the spilled elixir."

The newcomer was a girl, young and pretty.

"Since when did you become a mad scientist?" she enquired.

"My dear daughter, forgive a man his foolish fancies. I am trying to find a means to provide for us both more amply," Charlie answered.

"By burning the house down? Your plan for our future is to make an insurance claim?"

"Hush, child. I believe I am on the verge of a most momentous and significant discovery! There is but one vital clue I am missing, I am sure of it. If only I could discover the last, elusive ingredient... My calculations all add up, the elements are in the right proportions, the temperature is consistent with what is required..."

"Dad, I don't know that chemistry is your forté, seriously. I appreciate you're probably having a lot of fun in here cooking up potions, but don't give up your day job, okay? You're a better cop than - what is it you're doing, anyway?"

"_Transmutation_, Isabella! The stuff of legends!" Charlie whispered, eyes aglow.

"Yeah, right," his daughter, of altogether more pragmatic character, responded.

She wandered over to where Clandinestus lay open on the bench, where little jars and bottles were scattered about; containers and boxes hither and thither, and everywhere notes scribbled with fine ink in a spidery hand.

"Dad, I just made hamburgers. Why don't you go down to the kitchen and grab one and I'll sort things out a bit in here?" she suggested.

"Very well, very well. Tis true I am somewhat famished," Charlie nodded absently, accepting his daughter's offer.

Isabella's attention was taken by the figures and equations he had written and by the intriguing diagrams covering every piece of paper she could see.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he had wool of duck and tongue of bat on a list here somewhere," she mused as she traced a finger down a line of numbers, following the path of that finger with a curious gaze.

She was still absorbed with her reading and contemplations when Charlie re-entered some time later.

"My dear," he began, "I have just received word that there has been a disturbance with wild animals some way from here, and I must attend to it. I may be a day or more, although I shall endeavor to be no longer than that. Regretful though I am to leave you unattended, needs must be."

Charlie was one of a small but dedicated number of community members who took up the mantle of the constabulary as and when required.

"Sure Dad, no probs," Isabella responded, and her father took his leave.

By the morrow he had not returned, and Isabella had had little sleep, caught up in imaginings as she had become. Her father's contagion had infected her. She had opened amphorae and had added pinches of this, extract of that, a quantity of such and such and so forth, and a thimbleful here and there as she chilled and warmed and diluted and condensed. The seven step program detailed in Clandinestus, authoritative consultable repository of aracana, had been followed to the letter, to no avail.

Charred, soggy lumps and crumbs, all dismal, were what remained in the bottom of the beaker despite her efforts, and the matchless quarry of both Isabella and her father appeared to be remaining just that.

"This stuff - these ingredients, everything's so lifeless and bleuucchh..." Isabella murmured. The recipe, in essence, was for the creation, in all its softly glowing glory, of _or_ - beloved of all, prized by all, sought by all. _Gold_.

Not this murky flat dullness.

Isabella set out in the morning to capture everything she could in nature that was of the gleaming, priceless, gentle yet bright hue of aurum.

She collected buttercups and dandelions, marigolds and corn; feathers from canaries and startling vivid carp from the stream - anything of warm, sunny hue. She brought them back to the attic room and added them to her mixture in tiny measures, checking the formulae constantly, spending the entire day and evening at her self-appointed task. Night wore on, and her attempts failed to yield the desired results, though she reasoned gold must beget gold, surely? Weariness threatened to claim her. Considering that perhaps her additives were too brilliant, given the lambency of the argent and mercury, she even introduced the pale, dry yellow of straw. Base clumps remained, despite the scholarly and probitous assurances in the crinkly pages of the book whose name described its character.

But her father would no doubt return on the morrow, and would no doubt spend more fruitless days and nights engaged in this endeavor that would seemingly tender no beneficial results, just tiredness.

There was one thing she had yet to try.

Isabella's mother Renee had passed away when Isabella was but a child, leaving nothing behind but uncertain memories, and a golden wedding band.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if the real element were to be added to the stream of ingredients, the others would be compelled to act as desired; perhaps with the actual element present to exemplify itself as their guide, they would rearrange themselves as to their qualities and properties. No slender third finger would be adorned by that sadly redundant yellow band, Isabella thought, and mindful of her father's dearest wish to provide for her in comfort, she dropped the circlet into the solution.

But by this time her eyelids were so heavy as to prevent visual acuity, and she felt insufficiently alert to be able to determine the latest outcome. It could wait a few hours, while she slumbered. After barely summoning the energy to extinguish the wee flame beneath the chemical burner with an exhaled breath, Isabella had to retire to her bed.

Her father did indeed return in the morning, weary of limb and tired of heart, having been engaged in the pursuit of creatures unknown presumed responsible for the attack upon a fisherman.

"Bears, wolves, forest cats, man-eating boar," were the possibilities suggested by those on the hunting team, but Charlie's estimation was eagles, from the talon marks in the victim. Eagles were beyond the reach of local law enforcement.

He staggered in to the cottage and slept long, not rising until nightfall.

And then it was apparent that Isabella was not home, which wasn't unusual, as she had acquaintances aplenty and friends several in the neighborhood, and a maiden on the verge of womanhood needs the company of other women to let her know what's in store once she marries. Charlie certainly wasn't going to be her source of information on that particular matter. Its first hearing strikes an adolescent girl as beyond belief and she could be forgiven for losing all trust in the kindness and honesty of whomsoever imparts the dread facts.

Yawning and stretching, he climbed the winding attic stairs to the small room up at the top, all shrouded in the warm night, though moonglow peeked through the lattice windows and cast a shimmer on the polished floorboards. His laboratory was not quite as he had left it, so clearly his daughter had been here in his absence. What had she been up to?

Further into the room a different sort of glow became apparent, as Charlie peered over the rim of the metal pot Isabella had last used for her concocting. The sides were low, the base broad and flat - about the width of a man's hand across. A few dried twiggy sticks and stems stuck out, burnt and blackened. Puzzled, he picked them up and sniffed them. Earthy and grassy scents arose at his nostrils' demand. Straw? But back down in the pot, in the centre, at the bottom, lay a solid conglomeration. It gleamed. It shone. It glimmered quietly with the still glow valued in all societies, in all countries. The dearest, prettiest, softest, most lovely thing our earth has given us.

Charlie's heart leaped. Was his daughter responsible for this? Of course she was - who else could be?

He skipped downstairs, invigorated, barely able to contain himself. What could he do? Who could he tell? He wanted to bash on all the doors, ring the town bell, holler and howl and wake the dogs. He wanted to sound a trumpet, and set the horses free with smacks to their rumps and a yahoo to encourage them to stampede down the high street. Where could he go with such excitement threatening to burst him?

The tavern!

Not a drinking man, tonight was different. There could be nothing better than a tankard of amber ale to celebrate his genius daughter and her _remarkable_ achievement!

He sailed into the inn on a wave of triumph; joy and success writ large on his face above and beneath the moustache which all but obscured his upper lip, and he sat at the bar, smacking his lips in anticipation. Should he reveal what had transpired or shouldn't he? Would it be better or worse for Isabella if he did?

Chatter which had come to halt at his entry resumed and still he sat, wracked with indecision. Boast? Brag? No. Announce? Declare? No. His Isabella might not thank him for making a fuss about this. She was a quiet girl. Dutiful, calm, obedient, though still with an intelligent tongue in her head. The best daughter a man could hope for, really. But she had no suitors, and she was at the age men should be lining up for him to beat off with a stick. Why was it that the demure Isabella was uncourted? Did the idiots about him not see her worth?

"My daughter..." he began, and it seemed no-one listened.

"My_ daughter_..." No response.

Charlie turned to face the room, pushing his chair over in the process. Silence fell.

"My DAUGHTER - - - HAS TURNED _STRAW_ INTO _GOLD_!"

From the other end of the bar, in the shadows, sat a man Charlie had never seen before.

"Is that so?" his voice drawled.

His name was Edward, and though he lived locally, he had never before visited the tavern. He was a King's son, and he had been a King's brother, and yet another King's brother. Now he was King himself, as all three older male members of his family had given up the crown.

His father, crowned as a single man, had fallen in love with a divorcee, who could not by law be queen. The conflicted ruler had made his choice - hmm, love or duty? - and had abdicated.

Edward's two brothers had simply declined, on the grounds that they had better things to do.

Young Edward wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of being King himself, and had come out for a quiet night where nobody knew him, to see the nature of the people and to decide whether he would prefer to govern, or be one of them.

The crown was not in a good financial position, having been run down by poor management in the long ago past, and Edward, though Prince and King both, while sitting in a humble bar in an ordinary township was just as one of his subjects, neither more nor less. He had barely a coin in his pocket, and barely a prospect of acquiring any more. A King makes money by taxes, but if the people can't pay, the King cannot collect.

However, Edward was not motivated by wealth. He was interested in the world at large, in people, and in discoveries.

He heard the unlikely claim by the man at the bar who was clearly exhilirated about something, and who was clearly not drunk enough to be inventing his own story.

"What was that you said?" Edward asked, edging closer.

Charlie, as possessor of a strong moral code, a stable temperament and a quick and sound judgement, came to a decision as to the trustworthiness of the stranger.

"It is even as I have laid claim, friend," he nodded. "My extraordinary daughter, bereft of a mother's love yet steadfast as a yew and marvellous as a starling's eye, has brought to light a secret. I would call it a miracle, but it's mathematical. It's scientific and empirical, and has lain awaiting any with the cleverness and dedication to find the key." He paused for effect. "_My daughter can transform everyday substances into gold_."

The young King came forward now completely. "I'd like to meet this daughter. And I'd like to see the evidence," he said.

Charlie narrowed his eyes and evaluated the stranger, who was very well dressed, with a proud bearing. He showed no air of avarice at the mention of gold, instead he looked polite and merely interested.

"Well, I'm sure you would. I'm sure we all would," Charlie said. "But she's not some sort of spectacle. And this is not some sort of parlor trick. I will seek her permission first, and you may wait upon her good favor."

"Whatever you say. I'm Edward, by the way," the young man said, extending his hand. He had the firm grip of a gentleman, not limp and effete and not hard and boorish. His eyes were direct, his demeanor confident, yet without arrogance.

_Hmm,_ Charlie thought. _He's young, he's clean, he's well-mannered, and I'd like grandchildren. Isabella should meet him._

The next day, he knocked gently on his daughter's bedroom door, after having prepared a pot of tea, and browning a thick slab of bread impaled on fork prongs over the kitchen fire. When Isabella was small he'd cooked her oats, and had barely cooked since. She'd looked after him many a long year, and he'd sometimes wondered if their circumstances had stolen her childhood. Without a woman to run the house, a girl had done the job, and a very good job she'd done. Charlie was not the village fool, not by any means, but he'd left school as a lad, as had all the boys, save those destined for the priesthood or teaching or doctoring. His education since then had been by his wits. Things had changed in but a few years, and now his daughter had had more of book-learning than he'd ever had, and had proved to be of swift and able reasoning. No wonder she'd deciphered the Clandinestus when he couldn't, and had found a way to make his numbers add up to more than he had. His daughter was clever, capable and caring. He was a lucky man.

Her murmured assent answered his rap on her door, and he took in the tray with the small but hearty repast he'd painstakingly prepared.

"Today, daughter mine, we are to have a gentleman caller, come to see the marvel in the upstairs room," he smiled. _And to meet you_ was the unvoiced subtext.

Isabella was askance, as she surmised that he was referring to the paltry amount of precious metal lying in a blob in the little iron receptacle over the grate above last night's flame of failed scientific exploration.

"You're joking, right?" she said sharply.

"No, Isabella, I would not jest about such a matter," he scolded lightly.

"Jeez, Dad, how would anyone know what's in the upstairs room?" she asked. "Are you talking about what I think you're talking about?"

"I believe I most assuredly am. Your success, my dear. Your unparalleled achievement. I know you ventured in there and continued my work after I was compelled to leave, and now the culmination of your labors is apparent."

"I have to tell you something. I know what you think happened, but it didn't. Dad, really, just listen to me for a second..."

The door bell rang, and Charlie quit the room, and Isabella flung off her coverlet and sheets, standing in her petticoat, absently twisting a strand of hair as she thought. She had to immediately confess to Charlie what she'd done and how the experiments hadn't actually worked at all, but she'd have to pull him aside somehow to do it, so as not to cause him any embarrassment in front of their guest.

Once suitably attired, she went downstairs and into the reception room.

Charlie was standing with his back to her, with a man as tall as himself standing there too, both of them gazing out of the bay window. She cleared her throat a little to discreetly inform them of her arrival and they turned in tandem.

The stranger was splendid, even to a young girl who had spent the previous day looking at Nature's wonders. He was surely one of them, though not one she could so casually pick up in a field and bring home.

"Hello Bella, I'm Edward," he smiled, stepping forward. "Charlie was just singing your praises. He's one proud dad."

"Yeah, well, his dementia's setting in. Don't believe anything he says," she mumbled. "He gets me mixed up with my imaginary friend. She was pretty rad."

"My Isabella's modesty is only exceeded by her beaut - " Charlie began. He had by now been apprised of the identity of his tall young companion from the previous night, and was even more desirous of his daughter making a favorable impression.

"Dad!" Isabella exclaimed.

"Well, let's not tarry a moment longer. We must proceed. Follow me, young Edward," Charlie said, and he made for the staircase.

Edward stood aside in a courteous way, allowing Isabella to walk before him.

"Uh, there's really something I should say. I don't know what Charlie's been telling you, although I can guess, but - " she began, but Charlie interrupted again.

"You won't believe the evidence of your own eyes, Edward. It is not just the rare and valuable element that was made here last night - _history_ was made here too!" he crowed over his shoulder.

"Seriously, _Edward_, can I have a quick word?" Isabella hissed, but they had all made their way through the door at the apex of the rickety stairs by then, Edward needing to bow his head to pass under the lintel.

The room was as Isabella had left it, and Charlie strode triumphantly to the little saucepan, holding it up with a flourish.

"Yesterday, the stalks and stems of the field - today... gold!" he proclaimed.

"Extraordinary," Edward admitted, his gaze lingering awhile on Isabella's countenance before he turned back to her father. "And this was done how?"

"Science, my friend, science. There is a method, and that method must be followed to the letter, or success will not be met. The many, many failures of esteemed and diligent practitioners in this field are well-documented, but my precious daughter rendered an abstruse ingredient."

In the small room, stooping a little, Edward turned again to observe Isabella who stood frowning, knowing her father's claims to be fraudulent but unwilling to expose him as gullible, vain and foolish in front of a stranger.

"Are you going to let me in on your secret, Isabella?" Edward asked.

"No, she is not!" Charlie announced before his daughter could respond. He had a plan in mind, a wish for his daughter's future happiness in his heart, and determination in his veins.

"Isabella will not reveal to you the extraodrinary and arcane elixir. But if you require any further proof of her ability to do what we have patently seen she _can_ do, I hereby instruct you to provide her with a private and suitable room at your place of residence, and furnish her with such materials and equipment as she may deem necessary. The sensitive operation can only be conducted at night, therefore I shall present myself and my daughter at your dwelling tomorrow morning, at the amethyst hour, and by cock's crow you shall have something for your coffers. Are we agreed?"

"Sounds good to me," Edward nodded smoothly, and Isabella drew a deep breath. How had she become embroiled in such a perverse situation? And what was she to do about it?

A solution eluded her, and by the next evening she found herself and her father at the palace of the young King.

"Dinner? Anything to drink? Or straight down to business?" Edward asked, favoring her with a smile. He really was most attractive of feature, she had to admit to herself. If this situation wasn't so ridiculous and so out of hand - well, under any normal circumstances she would not have met a King. His striking and unpretermitable attractiveness was of no consequence considering the highly difficult position she was in. She needed to speak to him privately, and yet her vainglorious father was seemingly loathe to grant her the opportunity.

After exchanging pleasantries, Edward showed her to a room he had had especially prepared. The door shut behind him, and Isabella sank to her knees. She had no need to check the variety of items he had laid out for her to know that what she required would not be there. She couldn't make gold at all, she could only melt it.

In her despair, she failed to hear the door open. At least, that's what she assumed must have happened when she looked up to find herself under the scrutiny of a curious figure. A little girl stood before her with huge brown eyes soft and inquiring, fingers twirling themselves through pretty red hair.

"Who are you?" they asked simultaneously.

Isabella recovered from her surprise first.

"I'm Bella," she offered gently. The girl stood in her flowered dress, with a sash around the waist and a matching ribbon in her hair, looking more wondering than startled.

"Bella-rella-fella-hella," she rhymed. "Ooh, I said a bad word! I said _hell_."

"I won't tell anyone," Isabella assured her. "Do you live here? Are you related to Edward? Do your parents work in the castle?"

The girl skipped in a circle and then started tracing patterns on the floor with the toe of her shoe.

"Too many questions," she stated. "I want to ask you some. Why don't worms have a head at each end, so they don't have to turn around? Why isn't a fish called a swim? If the world is round like a ball, why isn't it bouncing?"

Isabella laughed merrily at the girl's quizzical expression. "I would answer those for you if I could, sweetie. Now, are you going to tell me why you're here?"

"Why are _you_ here?" came the response.

It seemed the type of every day conversation one might enjoy with another adult of one's acquaintance which would involve taking turns with asking questions and receiving pertinent answers was not to be the order of business here, Isabella realized. It mattered not, as she was glad of the diversion.

"I'm here because I did something on a whim, and my dad found it and misunderstood, and I didn't get the chance to explain properly to him. He met Edward in a bar and bragged about what he thought I'd done, and Edward believed it, and now he's brought me here to see if I can do it again. Only I can't."

Judging by the little frown creasing the skin between her eyebrows, the girl was puzzled.

"What was the thing?" she inquired.

"Oh, my dad had this experiment going, to see if he could turn things into gold. It can't be done; people have been trying for hundreds of years. I got an old wedding ring made of actual gold and melted it down in a pot, and my father saw it and thought I'd made it out of straw."

Tilting her head and apparently thinking very hard, the girl moved her eyes from side to side.

"I could help you," she announced at last.

"Thanks, honey, but I'm really just going to have to tell Edward the truth. I don't want to make my dad look silly, but it's just not possible to do what Edward wants," Isabella said softly.

"Wait," the girl replied confidently. "When Edward comes in here I have a special, clever trick that I can do, and everything will be all right. Now will you play with me? Do you know hopscotch?"

The game, and others, amused them sufficiently until Isabella deemed it time that the child was abed. With a hug and kiss from each to the other, the two girls said goodnight, and the younger of them seemed to simply disappear when Isabella blinked.

In the morning, at the moment a knock sounded on the door heralding Edward's arrival, the little impish girl was back, hair in a different colored ribbon and eyes sparkling merrily.

"Good morning, Bella. You have a friend?" Edward asked, casting a surprised glance at the child. "Who are you, angel?"

"I'm me!" the girl replied, beaming, as though it were obvious.

"Please join me for breakfast, Bella, and your friend, too. Now let's see what you managed last night," Edward said, striding to the bench which bore the equipment Isabella had barely bothered to glance at, knowing the hopelessness of her situation.

As he peered over the edge of the iron pot sitting above the burner, the child ran to him, holding her arms up.

"Edward, Edward!" she sang, in such an appealing tone that he stopped and turned to her. She was so small, and he so tall that he towered over her.

"Yes, Miss Smiley?" he asked, and bent to one knee so that she could come close.

She lifted both hands to his face, cupping his cheeks tenderly, and brought her mouth near enough to favor him with a featherlight kiss. He was already regarding her with affection, but after the kiss his smile grew, and he turned to Isabella in wonder.

"Well, I have to say I'm - surprised," he said. "Pleasantly."

He came to Isabella and took both of her hands in his.

"You must be hungry. I'm being a very poor host. What would you like? Coffee? Eggs? Muesli and yoghurt? Come on, let's have breakfast. I'm _starving_, aren't you?"

After a breakfast which was more food than Isabella would normally sit down to over an entire day, Edward summoned a cabriolet with a driver to see her home, asking her to return that same evening.

She had no comprehension of what had taken place in the exchange between Edward and the little girl, although it appeared that Edward was somehow under the impression that she had been successful in the undertaking he had required of her. Charlie was absent, no doubt engaged in further duties of a village constable, and Isabella had no-one to confide in. She busied herself about the house until the appointed time came, and today Edward had sent the little carriage to collect her.

"Bella, hi. I've been thinking about you all day," Edward began, then stopped as a blush seemed to flourish along his cheekbones. "I mean, about the business with the - ah - gold," he amended. "I've set everything up exactly the same as last night. If you need anything else you only have to ask. I'll be just along the hall. And I'm sorry, yesterday I didn't think to ask you if you wanted to take a break. How about tonight I come and get you, and we could have snacks and hot chocolate? Say, ten o'clock?"

Isabella felt a degree of confusion. The offer of supper and a break from her appointed task seemed to indicate that the prince perhaps desired a little of her company. On the other hand, it could simply mean that he thought her productivity would be improved if she were able to direct her attention away from her presumed concentration and calculation, and enjoy a brief respite in order to renew her energy.

"Hot chocolate sounds good. Ten o'clock sounds good, too," she found herself replying, without the volition of conscious thought.

Once back in the painstakingly constructed laboratory, which was in fact an open prison given that there was no lock upon the door, Isabella was despondent. Edward had been deceived as to her accomplishments of the previous night by the mysterious art of the unknown little girl, and he was still laboring under the misapprehension engendered in the first instance by Isabella's father. Possessed of an honest soul, Isabella felt that this deception was not to be borne. She resolved that she would tell him the truth.

A quick inventory of the items and ingredients placed at her disposal revealed that he certainly presumed her father's claims had been substantiated. There was a oil burner covered with a hot plate upon which to stand the pot, there was her father's huge and heavy book of reference, Clandinestus - and a notebook in which to enscribe her formulae and calculations. On the floor next to the table-legs was a large sack of straw. Hadn't Edward wondered why it was that the sack was undepleted after the previous night?

As she sighed over her difficult situation, a light and happy voice sounded from behind her.

"Hel_lo_ Bella-_bo_!"

Her ally from the previous night was suddenly in the room, as though having manifested out of thin air.

"Hey, Pookie. S'up?" Isabella responded, pleased to see the girl but unable to summon enthusiasm.

"My name isn't _Pookie_!" the child declared indignantly.

"Well, Peaches, you haven't told me what it is, so how do I know what to call you?" Isabella, reputed goldmaker replied.

"_You_ have to tell_ me_ silly! It's like a guessing game. Go on, try," the little one said.

"I'm supposed to be turning straw into gold here, not playing games with you, Muffin," Isabella chided gently.

"I'm not Muffin. Nobody in the world is called Muffin. Not even the Muffin Man - he's called _the_ _Muffin Man_! And anyway, you might as well play with me, because you know I can help you with that other business. I did it last night, didn't I?" the girl said, twisting a strand of her auburn hair.

"Yes - well I have no idea what you did, but Edward certainly seemed pleased with me. What _did_ you do? And how did you do it?"

"Oh," the girl said airily, standing on one foot with a smile of mischief in her pretty dark eyes. "I told you. It's a trick. I can touch somebody's cheek and make them see what I want to show them. I - um... well, I guess I made a mind picture for myself of that pot, and I put lots of gold in it - sort of like custard but nicer, and then I sent it to him. It was probably about, oh, a million dollars."

"You sent him a mind picture?" Isabella queried. She had never heard of such a thing, and while she didn't want to accuse the child of untruthfulness, it hardly seemed credible.

"Yeah. It's easy-peasy. I'll make some for you," her young visitor offered instantly.

"Sure."

Curiosity piqued, Isabella sank gracefully to the floor, arranging herself cross-legged. Little soft hands came to her face, touching with delicacy, and an image slipped into her mind.

"Ponies? Purple ponies with rainbow tails?" she asked in astonishment, and was answered with a giggle.

It wasn't so much that there was an actual image to be seen anywhere in her field of vision - it was the idea, the concept of an image.

"A carousel? The ponies are on a carousel! Holy moley - how the heck are you doing that? That's incredible! Show me what you showed Edward! I mean, can you please show me..."

Slipping into her mind was the idea of a pot of gold, exactly as the little girl had described it. Rich, gleaming, and thickly fluid with the texture of custard - no wonder the prince had looked surprised and happy. He would have thought a vast wealth had been created for him by Isabella, the Midas-maid.

"Okay, Pumpkin. You have a gift. Seriously. That doesn't actually get me out of the mess I've gotten myself into, but it does buy me some time. Can you show me some more? Show me your family," Isabella prompted, intrigued by the girl's unusual ability and seeking further demonstrations of it.

"Um - what about if I show you some other things?" the girl answered.

As Isabella sat with small fingers holding her face in the lightest of caresses, floods of images came to her. They were the sorts of bits and pieces one might expect to have residence in the mind of a young girl of six or seven - a bicycle, sets of coloring pencils, a piano, bouncing balls and playing cards and cakes and ribbons. Strangely, there were no people amongst the parade of _things_.

"Cupcake, this is all lovely, and I'm completely blown away, and I appreciate the view into your psyche, but - where are your parents?" Isabella asked in confusion. Surely, uppermost amongst a child's thoughts would be their parents?

The girl stood with her lower lip trembling, and said stoutly, "You have to guess my name," as though Isabella hadn't spoken.

"Okay, right. It must be nearly your bedtime. A few guesses - okay?" Isabella murmured, concerned that the girl was upset.

"Stacey? Jane? Mary-Jo? Lisa?" she began.

The response was a shake of a chestnut-topped head and a small, reluctant smile.

"Carmen? Siobhan? Mackenna? Bree?"

More of a smile. "You're not really trying. As if I'd have a weird name like those," the child murmured.

"Zoe? River? Kayley? Inara?"

"Not even close."

"Willow? Anya? Cordelia? Dawn?"

The game was threatening to draw out to epic proportions, as there were probably as many little girls' names and variations on them as there were stars in the sky, Isabella thought.

"Can I call you Darling if I don't get your name right?" she ventured, and her inquisitor shrugged.

"I guess. Darling's nice," she said. "Can we play cat's cradle?"

Isabella and Darling were still at play when Edward arrived with the announcement that ten o'clock was upon them, and the promised hot chocolate was at that very moment being prepared in the kitchen.

"Darling, ten is late for someone your age, and you know, you need your sleep so that you grow up big and strong," Isabella told the mite, gathering her up for an embrace. The girl returned the affectionate gesture ardently.

"I'll just give Edward a tickle on his cheek, and then I'll go," she whispered, and did exactly as she said she would.

Edward turned to Isabella with a look somewhere between reflective curiosity and cautious eudemonia after his quick kiss from little Darling, and he offered to escort Isabella to the kitchens.

"Do you prefer white or pink marshmallows?" he enquired.

"Well, duh - pink of course," Isabella responded, one hand tucked through his elbow, the other lifting her skirt and its underlying petticoat as they traversed the castle's flagged stone floors.

An hour seemed to fly by as the two found themselves caught in conversation, though they steered clear of anything involving chemistry.

"Have you been comfortable? Is there anything else you need?" Edward asked, prior to seeing Isabella back to her designated quarter.

"No, everything's fine. Cheers," she responded, the memory suddenly upon her of how he was being deceived, and how complicit she was in his deception. He was a perfectly nice person, and here she was, purporting to create wealth for him. Yet - how nice a person was he, if wealth were his primary concern?

She resolved that tomorrow she would be frank, and would relate entirely the circumstances by which the small amount of precious gold had appeared in her melting pot. She couldn't explain little Darling, but then, maybe Edward could...

And next evening, again at the amethyst hour, there she was again in the room with the abundance of straw, and there was little Darling, winsome and delightful. There too was Edward, enigmatic prince.

"First of all, today I have something to contribute," Edward announced, before Isabella could say she needed to speak to him urgently, about a matter of importance. He reached into the pocket of his shirt, and handed something small to her.

It was a tissue-wrapped bundle, and on unwrapping it, she discovered that what lay in her hand in its white crinkled nest was a ring - a golden ring. A wedding band, precisely, not so very different from the one she had so recently melted down, though it was rose gold where Renee's had been yellow.

"This was my mother's," Edward told her softly, wearing an expression that contained both tenderness and sorrow, and conveyed the heartfelt depths of his memory.

"She died when I was young, and my father married a wonderful woman called Esme, who brought me up. I've found myself thinking of the matter of my own marriage lately, and I've decided the first thing I'll do with this new gold you're producing is to have wedding bands made for myself and my bride. So it seems appropriate and even symbolic that I contribute this to the mix - an old ring going towards making a new one..."

Isabella's breath caught. Edward was considering marriage? She wondered who his eye might have fallen upon - which highborn lady or princess from near or far? Possibly he had been pledged to somebody since childhood, who had now become of age. This was the way these things worked in these sorts of families. There were bloodlines to ensure, dynasties to continue. Strangely, the thought upset her. Edward - charming, friendly, and solicitous as he had proven himself to be over the last couple of days, seemed to have secured himself an unexpected and surely unadvisable place in her affections. This was a moment when she should congratulate him on his upcoming nuptials, but she felt disinclined to do so.

An awkward silence ensued, until Darling broke it with an impatient cry.

"What about me? Nobody has said my name yet!" she wailed. "Isabella - aren't you going to try some more? I'll go away and never come back if you don't tell me right now!"

"Don't chuck a tanty, Darling," Isabella cooed instantly. "There are a squillion names already in existence for little girls, and a squillion more that nobody's thought of yet! I'll play with you some more, and maybe we can have a little snack..."

"Names, please," demanded Darling, without the least appearance of mollification.

Isabella sighed, casting a glance at Edward, who looked back at her with an expression unreadable.

"Rose, Donna, Martha, Amy?" she asked.

Darling stamped a foot. Alarmingly, a small crack appeared in the floor.

"Katniss? Primrose? Dellie? Effie?"

Seemingly exasperated, Darling stepped close to Bella.

"I _really_ mean it," she whispered. "It's not that I _want_ to disappear. But I just_ will_. If you can't give me my name, I won't exist!"

_"Give_ you your name? I thought I was guessing it," Isabella answered, baffled.

"Oh, Bella," said Darling. "I'm not actually _real_ you know! Only you can make me. Now what's my name?"

She lifted her little hand for a moment to Isabella's cheek and in a flash, Isabella saw a montage of images. Herself, casting a gold circlet into the pot, watching it liquify. A lager, masculine hand adding another gold circlet, and the two golds mingling into a soft yet fiery blend of pink and yellow. Two rings emerging, and an image of each being placed upon a third finger of a left hand...then a radiant Bella in a wedding gown, body held tightly against the tall figure of a man who was kissing her. When they broke apart, and their faces gazed at each other's in mutual adoration, she saw that the man was Edward. Following swiftly upon that picture was one of her holding a bundle - a baby swaddled in white cloth, and the arms wrapped around both mother and infant were those of Edward, smiling down with tenderness and pride. Then another picture, undeniably of Darling, though much younger, weaving unsteadily on chubby legs, hands held on either side by doting parents - Isabella and Edward.

Isabella dared a glance towards the prince, realizing with acute embarrassment that Darling was also touching him on the cheek.

"What are you seeing?" Isabella asked him in a trembling voice.

"You and me and Darling, all together like a family. It's what she's showed me all along," he answered.

"But - " Isabella floundered. "I thought she showed you gold?"

He favored her with the same smile she'd seen in the images, the smile of devotion.

"No, something far more valuable," he murmured.

"_Excuse me!_" Darling interrupted their moment of discovery. "_What's my name?_"

And although she suddenly had things to think of that she could not have contemplated, Isabella was affected by the girl's urgency. She wracked her brains. Herself and Edward - Darling's parents? Bound together by love and marriage, symbolised by wedding bands? That was it! There was her answer!

The rings of their mothers, combined, made into something new to celebrate and formalize and signify a loving bond. Was there a way somehow to combine the two names, to make something new for this beautiful child, to call her into existence?

"_Renesmee_!" Isabella declared triumphantly, but to her dismay, Darling struck the floor again with her small foot.

"No!" she shouted. "That's not my name! It's too awful!" Another crack appeared. Such a small foot to cause damage to a stone floor!

"It's a lovely name!" Isabella pleaded, but Darling shrieked and began to cry, unconvinced, and seemingly inconsolable.

"You can't call me that! I won't let you!" she insisted, and stamped her foot a third time. "Think of something else or I'll never be born!"

The castle was several hundred years old and had withstood invasions and sieges, fires and floods, lightning and snow, and yet at the third footfall from an exceedingly angry non-existant child, a hole appeared in the floor, and Darling simply sank.

Isabella and Edward darted forward, but were in no way able to prevent the child vanishing through the hole, as she seemed to evaporate despite their grasping efforts. They were left empty-handed, staring at one another.

Isabella began to cry softly, and Edward reached a tentative hand to her shoulder.

"Do you think she's really gone? What does it all mean?" she begged him.

He shrugged. "I don't know, but we'll work it out. Together. I think that she meant we'd be together."

This idea was so new and so startling that Isabella couldn't take it in. "But you're going to get married..." she mumbled.

"Well, it's early days yet. I've met someone, it's true, but I don't expect her to walk down the aisle with me in the next five minutes or anything. I though I'd start with some sort of romance first. Like inviting her for hot chocolate," he said.

"Oh. Hot chocolate with marshmallows?" Isabella inquired shyly, looking up at him as he nodded. "Pink or white?"

"Pink, of course," he smiled.

Later, down in the kitchens, Isabella and Edward continued to smile at each other, hands wrapped around warm mugs frothing with milky, creamy chocolate drink.

"So, this has all been kind of weird. The whole business with the gold - you really got me over here hoping that I could make you fabulously wealthy?" Isabella asked.

"No. I've got enough to live on, and I can always get a real job. I have no belief whatsoever in transmutation. I wanted to see you some more, and I didn't know if your father would agree to let you go out with me, so I ran with the whole alchemy thing - I was improvising. I really just wanted a chance to get to know you."

"And what about Darling? Do you think she'll come back?" Isabella asked wistfully.

"I don't know. I got the impression that you and I would have to marry first, to call her into being. But... we could take things slowly - we could date for a while. As long as you like, really. We need to build up to the exchange-of-rings business, because that's all very grown-up and serious. Are we actually engaged already? I really don't know if I'd want to have a child before we've even - well, you know. There's a process. And, sorry, but that name _was_ dreadful. No wonder she ran away," Edward replied.

"I thought it was a nice touch, to acknowledge our mothers like that," Isabella sighed, internally incredulous that she could be having a conversation about naming their first child with a man she barely knew, yet apparently might marry. "Hey - but you said Esme was your adoptive mother - what was your birth mother's name?"

"Elizabeth."

"Oh - Elizabeth. Elizabeth. That's a _lovely_ name."

And somewhere out in the ether, in the place souls reside before they are called forth into this material world, where they float in the sublimity of pre-existence, a trilling, musical, childish voice was distinctly heard to say, "phew".

And somewhere rather closer, the man who was clever but not clever enough was about to find that though his attempts at transmutation had met with a disappointing result, he was nevertheless apparently well able to make something enduring and invaluable. He was exceedingly good at match-making.

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Hmm - if my dad could set me up with a prandsome hince and a lifetime supply of pink marshmallows - I'd have him exhumed!


	16. Chapter 16  Buccaneers 1

For anyone who thought I'd fallen asleep for twenty years - I'm still here!

This story is M. Yes.

**Buccaneers**

**Part 1**

I was an alert and responsive baby, so my parents repeatedly told me. I was inquisitive and advanced as a child. As a teenager I became challenging, and by young adulthood had progressed to impossible.

Now in my twenties I was facing disinheritance, my mother and father having given up their indulgence. There was much wringing of hands, accompanied by stiff-upper-lip utterances and grave pronouncements as to what befell well-born young men who succumbed to vice.

These were not entirely unwarranted as I had, in fact, succumbed to vice. Parental expectations had been too burdensome a load for my shoulders all these years, and the discovery of opium and whores had been a welcome diversion. In my younger days, while still earnest, I'd performed exceptionally well at school and was headed in my father's footsteps for medicine, at the very least. But my serious Pater had two decades ago chosen a Beauty to marry and breed from, and I had had the uncertain fortune of inheriting a face and body that both women and men swooned over. At school the masters either hated me or flattered me, in direct proportion to the accord they reckoned my attractiveness and my father's wealth was due. Some of them were Fairies, and these fawned on me to a degree that was sickening. I had no regard for men whatsoever, and was more than delighted when the scullery maid, sweet Charlotte the harlot, introduced me to the globes of pleasure and grove of treasure that was womankind.

So, profligate, I emerged from school with barely an educational credit to my name. Money I despised, in those days. I had enough of it to cover a bed in golden coins and sleep in the discomfort. I could ask for it in banker's notes and roll around on the floor in them, if I so wished. Indeed, I did that, with dear Charlotte, and with other girls I met on street corners and in public houses, and took to the lodgings my father paid for near the university.

It was a miracle I hadn't contracted the pox, and hadn't sired an army's worth of progeny, with the number of times I had found my release in the arms of a woman, or behind one.

Despite my dismal academic performance, my entrance to university had been approved, and I had rarely gone, spending most of a year or two sleeping the day through and spending nights lounging on my back on cushions with a hookah pipe between my teeth. There was more to be learned meandering through my own mind than through dry textbooks, listening to some dour professor reciting facts for those of the population who would repeat them, parrot-fashion.

Other nights had been spent in other pursuits. I enjoyed frequenting taverns and listening to wild music played on the flute and fiddle, and I loved tales of sea serpents and whales, mermaids and pearls. When I heard there was employment to be found on vessels in far away waters, stealing from the Spanish, I pricked up my ears. I imagined swordfights against swarthy opponents, clambering up rigging and springing back down to the deck to cuff a Spaniard about the ear - all for the glory of England.

On the day my father called me into his salon and expressed his extreme disappointment that I was a wastrel and an ingrate, instead of feeling shame I saw liberty looming.

"Edward, I have done everything I can for you," he said.

From his point of view, I could understand that this was true.

"You have failed to dedicate yourself to your studies, and instead have pursued a course of dissolution. I am afraid that irrespective of your placement in the best schools, with the best tutors, you will amount to nothing," he continued. "A young man has a degree of - curiosity - about some matters, I understand. Particularly those pertaining to women. I know the young ladies of our social circle will certainly not partake in the alleviation of that curiosity, and that before a man is married, it is as well that he is experienced in these matters, since his bride will definitely not be. A few visits to a certain type of premises for educational purposes are beneficial to a man. However, the frequency of your presence in brothels is not unknown to me."

I didn't really want a lecture.

"Furthermore, it has been brought to my attention that you have not only repeatedly visited houses of ill-repute, you have been observed in reduced states of fitness leaving opium dens. Edward, such pursuits take an enormous toll in more than one area. Your cognition, both short and long term, will be undoubtedly affected, and your purse will be greatly diminished. Alternate views of reality are seductive, but they come at a price. Addiction is costly, Edward, and will take a grievous toll on your health. You would be as well to desist from such activities immediately. Furthermore, I simply will not continue to fund them."

Funny how when you're but a lad, your father knows everything. Now that I had seen a few things, and had a few experiences outside of my home, I saw that my father wasn't half the expert and authority I'd always taken him for. I saw him as a dullard, who knew nothing but textbooks and phials, and medical apparata and bandages. If somebody fainted, or cut themselves, or swelled up mysteriously or developed spots, Carlisle knew what to do. While certainly useful, this seemed a narrow area of specialization when there was a whole world in all its variety and splendor right outside our door.

So he wouldn't fund me anymore?

Fine.

I loved the docklands where the ships pulled in. I loved the yelling, and the quick outbursts of hot violence and hotter love, where sailors punched one another and kissed women within seconds of either act. I loved the aromas that drifted from the ships' holds - exotic tea from lands further than I could imagine, and coffee from countries sun-drenched and mountainous. Even wilder were the fragrances I learned were from spices: cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Picturing the unknown origins of these powders was incredibly exciting to me. I thrilled to the sight of piled crates with their secret cargoes, and to witnessing all the comings and goings of the port, the embarking and disembarking of people seeking new lives.

There was a ship tied up, and she was jaunty and seemed to float a little higher above the waterline than the others. On a whim, I sidled past ropes and crew and ascended the gangplank and asked for the first mate.

"What would ye be wantin? I'm a busy man," he said sourly, appraising me with a negative glance. I was attired in the only clothes I had, which were finely tailored and finely woven, and perhaps the reason for his disapproval. I may not have looked like a seaman, but it had come to me in a flash - if I was to take a position on a ship, my father would be free of me, and I'd have a job that would give me both board and a wage. I wouldn't be mixing with the effete and dreary youths I'd been all through school with, and I'd have a real adventure.

"Employment," I answered.

The man snorted and shrugged. "Are ye stronger than ye look, lad?" he asked.

I'd played rugby and I'd rowed in school, and though I was as slim as my mother, I had both strength and endurance.

"Yes, I am," I declared. "When do we sail?"

He shook his head. "You're far too clean, and yer hands are too pretty for this life. But if ye insist, ye'll soon see. We sail tonight for the Windward Passage, and yer wage will be a gold coin if you're still alive when the ship makes it back to the King's England. Get up now and find Garrett, he's the quartermaster, and tell 'im Jim sent ye."

The deck moved only slightly beneath my feet as I went astern, looking for Garrett. I found him soon enough - a huge man with teeth missing and a gold ring in his ear.

"Well, hello there Pretteh!" he hooted, and men about him stopped what they were doing to look at me. "Will you be joining our merry company, then? Out to steal from the Spanish what they would steal from us? I'd like to hope you're worth more than your clothes, young Pretteh, I'd like to hope. Now roll your sleeves up and take a bucket. The deck needs a decent swabbing afore the afternoon's through because we like it to reflect the sunset. Don't we lads?"

Someone thrust a bucket at me, and someone else a mop, and thus I was occupied, failing to notice when we cast off and actually set to sea. All of a sudden, I looked up and the dock was receding, and my careless whim had become a reality.

My trousers were stolen from me the first night. They were woollen, and unlike anything anyone else on board was wearing. I was held down as they were pulled off, and then men fought over them, until they were so torn as to be unwearable anyway. What rough types were these? They cared not for my admonishments, and my pointing out the folly of their quarreling over the garments to the point that they were rendered unwearable. I slept fitfully in a hammock in my drawers, wondering whether I'd lose them as well.

Garrett roared with laughter when he saw me the next day. "The Pretteh has legs like a maid!" he guffawed, and I could have punched him on the jaw for that jibe, but I didn't. There is an order of authority at sea, and without it there is mutiny. A sailor on his second day aboard can hardly challenge the order when the rest of the crew may well have known one another for years. I held my tongue, and Garrett sent a deck hand to find me new trousers. They didn't fit, but a length of rope about my waist secured them well enough, and that was the beginning of my life at sea.

The first few days were hard, as I suffered greatly from motion sickness. I learned very quickly to have a bucket next to my hammock, as I found I had to clean up after myself. Wiping the floor of vomit on my knees even as I vomited anew was not an experience I was prepared to undergo twice. No-one was friendly to me, and hostile whisperings and mutterings followed me as I went about, attending to the endless scrubbing I had been assigned to. There was never enough to eat, and the water was brackish though we were so recently out of port. Even if we had fair sailing all the way, it would be weeks before we reached our destination, and I was already regretting my foolish and impetuous decision.

Looking back, those were the halcyon days.

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Pleased to be re-making your acquaintance, me hearties!

How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced?

A buck an ear!

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Pirate Edward!


	17. Chapter 17 Buccaneers 2

**Buccaneers**

**Part 2**

More than a week passed before I caught my first glimpse of the captain, which was as well, for had I seen him before we pulled away from the docks I might have found my mind changed and discovered a preference for life on land. He was as alarming a person as I had ever laid eyes upon - foul of appearance and foul of odor. His hair was jet black and matted and he sported a beard so thick and matted too it was impossible to tell where one started and other finished, if indeed there was any demarcation. His upper lip was bare of whiskers, but sported tattoos instead which extended up over his fleshy cheeks. Surprisingly, his clothes were a good deal cleaner than he was, his boots also shiny and well-tended. The scathing look he gave me could have withered a wheatfield, and I was glad his gaze passed over me seeing no need to comment. From the way the crew fell silent as he moved among them it was clear that none held him in any positive regard. Only Garrett spoke, giving a report of weather conditions and the expected journey time if the winds prevailed, and then the dreaded Captain Eleazar disappeared below decks.

Grumbling broke out as soon as the hatchway had closed after him, and it transpired that he was feared and loathed in equal measure.

"Watch your back, Pretteh," someone sniggered at me.

"Best watch your front as well, boy," someone else added, but I had no idea what they meant.

A couple more days into the voyage, I finally had a night's sleep without throwing up the lumpy gruel that was our regular fare. The burly man in the hammock next to me slurred, "Got your sea-legs now, Pretteh? No more hurlin' your guts?" and I inferred that he was being solicitous.

"I hope not," I answered.

The night after that I was woken from a deep sleep and pulled unceremoniously to the floor. Sleep-drugged and slow, I was barely aware of what was happening as two men tore off my trousers and undergarments, holding me down. The other - I can scarce say what he did, or at least attempted to do. I had gained my wits sufficiently by then to fight, though they laughed at me. I swore and cursed, and I threatened, and the burly man, my hammock neighbor, came from behind me and stood in front.

"I grow tired of your whining voice, Pretteh. I'll give you something to do with that mouth of yours, with your accent and your tones and your ways. Thought you'd like a life on the ocean waves, eh? Well, there are women aplenty in the ports, but none out here in the blue, and we get by with what we find, until the real thing comes along. You'll do for a while, Pretteh, you'll do."

To my horror he shoved his member hard into my mouth, and when I bit him he and the others punched me. I resisted until I subsided into unconsciousness, and I came around when it was still dark, finding myself aching and sore everywhere, with a disgusting, bitter taste lingering on my tongue.

Ignoring my duties in the morning, I went straight to Garrett, painful though it was to walk. I described the crimes perpetrated upon me the previous night and showed him my bruises, insisting that some action be taken against the offenders.

"Well, Pretteh," he said, "It's your own fault. It's not natural for a man to go without a woman, and here's all these red-blooded menfolk about, at sea for weeks and weeks with no females in sight. You have that fine way of talking, and you keep yourself so clean and nice - and you're so pretty - what are these fellows supposed to think?"

"Then take me to the Captain! He'll hear me!" I demanded.

"You'll not want to attract his attention, Pretteh, I'm warning you. Best get over it, or sort it out for yourself," was the indifferent response.

This was intolerable! I had been assaulted and abused - and nothing was to be done about it?

At University I had been quite sporting, in between bouts of opium-induced incapacitation, and I turned away from Garrett, marching to the bottom of the mainsail. Demetri, my tormentor, was up in the rigging, repairing tears in the rope. I had never climbed a rope in my life, but I grabbed a rung in my hand, and began to haul myself up. I was aware that work on deck had ceased, and the crew were watching me.

"Oh, ho, Pretteh! Come for a kiss?" Demetri spluttered in surprise. He was well-built, but I was coldly furious, and I reckoned that might just even us out. Besides, from what I'd gathered over the last few days, he was colossally stupid. I'd fenced, boxed, and played rugby, and knew a fair bit of combat and engagement theory, whereas I reasoned he was just a thug. I could take him.

"Not a kiss, Demetri, no," I called back as I climbed. "I've come to cut off your tiny trouser-snake and feed it to the seagulls, though I must apologize to them beforehand for the _smallness_ of the offering."

Laughter sounded from below us as everyone heard.

"Don't be vexed, Pretteh. I'll be nicer next time. How about that?" Demitri offered, now looking wary. He had probably never been challenged before.

"There won't be a next time for you, Demetri, unless it's with a shark," I answered, and I'd nearly reached him. We were several yards above the deck, and I've no head for heights, but I've no heart for rape, and no stomach for bullies. I'd rather fall to my death in the sea than ever again endure the treatment that had been meted out to me the previous night. I had no way of knowing what had happened after I passed out, but I was suffering considerable discomfort in the rear passage, so I guessed neither Demetri or his accomplices had minded relieving their tensions on someone unresponsive and unconscious.

I had to angle my climb so as not to approach him from below, and once he realized my intention, he started to climb too.

"Trying to get away from me, are you now?" I taunted him. "Not like last night?"

He was more experienced in clambering about the rigging than me, without a doubt, but he was carrying extra weight, and I was nimble. I was soon alongside him, and he pulled a knife.

"Come now, that's not friendly," I scolded, as he swept it at me. I began to wind both my legs around ropes in order to free my hands, not caring if I ended up swinging upside down, whereas he held on with one hand. I kept feinting, and he kept parrying, but the thrusts with the knife were taking a lot of effort, and he was having trouble holding on. I kept mocking him, too.

"What did you have for breakfast, Demetri? Half a hog? And rum, too? You're a little bleary-eyed, aren't you? A little slow? And you're getting fat, too. Maybe you shouldn't be up here so high, in your condition. You're not in your prime any more, Demetri. I'll wager you have to pay a lot to find a woman who'll fuck you. Do you even earn coin enough for that? Is that why you're sneaking up on sleeping boys, you malodorous cur?"

He bellowed and swung wildly with the knife, and I grabbed his wrist and twisted it. The knife fell, a bright flash, down into the sea, and his gaze followed it, shocked.

"That was a good knife, Demetri. And it wasn't yours, was it? Ship's property? Maybe you should go and get it?"

I started to punch him, and I'd made sure that I was holding on to the ropes with my left hand, taking a gamble that he was right-handed too. He was flailing at me, but I'd gotten in a couple of good blows to the temple, and he was already groggy. I stopped short of knocking him into the next life, though. It could well be that the captain wouldn't take kindly to the murder of a crew member. By the same token, if he permitted rape, he had to have a liberal view on violence.

"There, there, poor Demetri. Got a headache? I'll leave you to your duties now, but if you ever bother me again, you won't live to see another day. And I'll make your last few hours unpleasant. Do you understand me?" I hissed, and the ruffian nodded. I really didn't think he'd give me any more trouble, and I didn't think his slow-witted gang would be loyal enough to him to avenge his humiliation.

I climbed back down to the deck, and the staring crew stepped back, making a space around me. Everyone except Garrett.

"Demitri, you pot-bellied oaf!" he yelled, up towards the sails. "You lost us a knife! Wages and rations docked, and a change of duties. You're scraping barnacles now."

The spectators drifted away, and the quartermaster looked at me.

"So, Pretteh," he drawled. "Limber on the ropes, aren't ye? Congratulations on your new job. Rigging."

That night I wasn't looking forward to having to sleep in the hammock next to Demitri's, but Jim, the bosun, came below decks after the evening meal.

"You're changing quarters," he told me. "Outside the captain's cabin - where the cabin boy sleeps - there's a spare space. You can sling yer 'ammock there."

I didn't know whether to thank him or not, so I nodded.

"Lad, I know what 'appened, and I don't agree with the way some of the buggers treat the new 'uns. Some cap'ns don't allow it, and some turn a blind eye. I've managed to get you away from Demetri, but he's a nasty piece of work, so it's a shame you didn't throw 'im overboard when you 'ad the chance. You'd better watch out, since 'e'll 'ave it in for ye now, and ye'll not be safe."

Jim. He was old enough to be my grandfather, and I'd never had a grandfather. It was good of him to afford me this caution.

"Guess I'll buy you a shot of whiskey in Tortuga," I told him.

"I'm a thirsty man. Make it the whole bottle," he answered.

And though it was a small ship, I discovered that I hadn't met everybody on board. That night, just as I'd strung my hammock next to the one already there, the door to the captain's cabin opened and a boy stepped out. I'd not blown out the lanterns yet, so there was a little illumination. The lad was skinny and grubby - we were all grubby - and as he approached me his eyes were dark pools in his thin face. His fair hair was a wild tangle, and though most of us wore a pigtail - or used our knives to cut jaggedly at our unkempt manes - his hair just stuck out in a tangled halo.

"You're attendant to Eleazar?" I asked.

He nodded, and slung himself gracefully into his hammock, pulling the blanket about him and clearly inviting no further conversation. Almost within moments, I heard delicate snores.

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I don't know if Ffn is being failsome, or if I actually don't have a single reader.

That's what my stats are telling me, and both those alternatives are a bummer.


	18. Chapter 18 Buccaneers 3

I said M didn't I?

**Buccaneers**

**Part 3**

Bells sounded at five hundred hours, as usual, and I wished I could ignore them, but of course that wasn't an option. Lashes awaited those who shirked. My new neighbor was still asleep however, and I took the opportunity to have a look at him. He was possibly younger than me, though it was hard to tell. His features were fine - brows, cheekbones and lips all hinting at a heritage of class other than the rough-hewn types aboard. I wondered what his story might be, and resolved to speak to him when I had the chance. For now though, I'd better be out, and seeing what Garrett had in store for me.

Throughout the day, I was avoided by all the crew, as it seemed my altercation with Demetri had tipped the scales somewhat. I espied the bully a couple of times and his head turned quickly away so that he didn't catch my eye. No-one deliberately tripped me, no-one threw a bucket of water on me, and no-one knocked into me in the mess below decks, spilling my gruel so I'd have to scrape it off the floor or go without a meal, all of which I had been subjected to before now. Had I actually earned some grudging respect, and won myself some freedom from torment? If I had, I was thankful. I didn't know how long a period of grace would last before Demitri, the boorish blackguard, and leader of a gang of scoundrels, would come for me, but maybe I'd have time to gather some allies. It seemed Jim might be sympathetic towards me, though certainly Garrett was not.

That night, the thin-faced boy was in his hammock as I was preparing to sleep, and he fixed large eyes on me.

"It's not over, with that fat one. He's a bad sort," he said softly.

"I suspected as much," I answered. "I'll sleep with one eye open."

"Make sure you do," the boy nodded. "He'll make a racket on the steps though. The boards are all loose. The captain keeps them that way, so he'll hear if anyone creeps up to knife him in his sleep."

And so it was I learned how unpopular Eleazar was, and got the feeling that I might be able to befriend the boy.

"My name is Edward. Who are you?" I asked him.

"Jasper," came the quiet reply, as he shrugged himself into his blanket. He must have been either unafraid of Demetri, or very confident of his early warning system. Or possibly too tired to care.

And in the morning I became a rigger. If I'd thought Garrett was doing me a favor I soon learned my mistake. It's the most dangerous job aboard. If you missed your footing or lost your handhold you either plunged yards to the deck and broke half your bones, or you fell over the sides and became sharkmeat.

Jasper was clearly still attending to his tasks when I crawled exhausted into my hammock that night. I knew he had to fetch and carry for the captain, and keep Eleazar's cabin clean and his clothes in good order. Eleazar was so demanding a master that Jasper had permanent dark circles under his eyes and seemed constantly fatigued. This night, beyond the captain's door I could hear noises I couldn't quite interpret, although they didn't sound like the polishing of boots. There was slapping and wheezing and then a few grunts. Minutes later, Jasper slipped through, and ignoring me, curled into his own hammock. A night later, he emerged from the captain's door stumbling, with his hand over his mouth. There was a red mark on his face. I watched as he spat into our night soil bucket, and wondered if Eleazar had hit him and made the inside of his cheek bleed.

"What went on in there?" I asked him with concern, when he'd finished wiping his face. "Did he hurt you?"

"A little. Nothing serious," he responded.

"He hit you?"

There was no need for Jasper to answer. He gestured at his face.

"He shouldn't have any cause to beat you. You work hard - I've seen how much he makes you do. You work like a dog. He shouldn't beat you regardless - but it's not as though you are lax in your duties," I persisted, though I'd learned by now that there was no point taking grievances on board to somebody senior. Nobody cared. And when the person your grievance was with was the captain, you didn't have any hope of redress. There was probably nothing at all Jasper could do about his situation.

"It's not to do with laxity or duties, Edward. It's to do with his appetite and his perversion."

This stopped me. Perversion? Eleazar somehow enjoyed hitting Jasper? I didn't understand.

Seeing my confusion, Jasper sighed.

"You really don't know, Edward?" he asked. "Eleazar uses me, for gratification. Now and then, as part of it, he slaps me. Usually on the backside, though. This is the first time he's hit my face. He couldn't reach my backside, with what he made me do."

I had to process this, and when I did the images that came to me made me want to be sick. Jasper hadn't been spitting out blood. He'd been spitting out -

The realization made me want to retch myself. It seemed forced sexual receptivity was endemic aboard this blighted, floating hellhole.

"Have you refused him?" I asked, knowing the pointlessness of the question.

"I did at first. He found it amusing."

"So he forces you despite your non-consent? That is criminal, both morally and legally."

My hands curled into fists at my side and I looked towards where my knife lay on a ledge next to my hammock.

"I will kill him Jasper. He can't do this to you, and I'll make it stop," I said in a choked voice.

Jasper shrugged. "Leave it. It could be worse. He's the captain, and if he lays claim to me, I am his alone. If someone else was to take a fancy to me I'd be shared around. Dire as things are for the moment, we'll make the Windward Isles in another couple of weeks and I'll be off this stinking ship. I'll find work ashore and never set to sea again."

After Jasper's revelation about the time he spent in the Captain's cabin, I did everything I could to make life easier for him. Not that there was much I could do. When he wasn't around I poured some of my daily water rations into the flask he kept near our hammocks, and I slipped him most of my rum, too, saving myself only occasional mouthfuls. I declared myself to be overheating of a night, and gave him my blanket. And I talked to him. He and I both were starved of conversation - me because the swine above decks had little to say besides cursing and squabbling, and he because surly Eleazar's idea of dialogue proved to be himself mumbling unintelligibly, and cuffing Jasper if he responded.

I discovered, as I had conjectured, that Jasper was well educated, from a family of the merchant class. He alluded to some sort of falling out with his parents, and having run away to sea. Aspects of his story mirrored mine - including his revulsion at conditions on board, and at the behavior and manners of his crewmates. He was of a philosophical bent though, altogether more thoughtful than I. He was erudite and insightful, and I found myself wishing I had met him earlier. His observations were shrewd, his considerations sensitive, and if I had had such a clever companion during my time at university I might not have been such a wastrel. As it was, the brief moments we managed to share of one another's company rapidly became the highlight of my otherwise miserable, exhausting day.

"Did you have a sweetheart at home?" I asked him one night idly, when we both happened to be awake at the same time.

"No," he answered. "Did you?"

"If I had, I should hardly be here," I replied. "I'd be back in England, lying in a soft bed enjoying kisses, and playing with a girl's pretty breasts."

We were both quiet for a while, reminiscing. Well, I was. A few girls stood out from the rest - Charlotte of course, generous and accommodating. Victoria, flame-haired and with a quick, ascerbic tongue. Orphaned Jane who was whoring to support herself and her younger brother. I remembered them well enough, but none had come anywhere near to capturing my heart.

"Do you miss women?" I said.

"My mother, yes," he answered slowly. "More than that, I haven't really spent much time in their company."

I pondered this, and extrapolated. "You've never lain with one?"

"No," came the quiet answer.

I had been bedding women and girls since I was fourteen years old, and his admission was surprising to me.

"But what do you do to relieve your needs?"

"Same as most men, I imagine. I make good use of my right hand."

I rolled onto my side to look at him, and he was gazing at the bulkhead where our hammocks were attached beyond our feet.

"Or I lie with a man," he continued, in a voice so low I barely heard it.

"But - " I began, and couldn't think of how to respond. His statement shocked me, completely.

Jasper seemed to wait for me to catch up.

"The captain - what he does to you - are you saying that you have taken part in such acts of your own free will?" I finally managed.

"Edward, between partners who are willing it's nothing like what happens to me here, and what you've experienced. It's not brutal or humiliating. What the captain does to me is a sinful travesty. When partners care, and neither seeks to hurt the other it can be tender and beautiful and exciting, and you can fall in love."

"Love? Surely, what transpires between men when there are no women available cannot be deemed love, even if neither of them are reluctant to take part..." I almost stammered.

"It's nothing to do with whether there are women available, Edward. I'm simply not drawn to them. I have a preference for a male touch, and a male voice, and male skin. Consensual acts involving male partners are not shameful or degrading, and participants may even feel that such pleasure is God-given. It's certainly heavenly."

I thought back to Demitri, and his accomplices, and I felt doubtful. "Surely not," I frowned.

"I assure you, Edward, there is joy to be had between men when there is trust."

I was certain that I could not experience any joy or pleasure at a man's touch, and my expression of disbelief must have communicated this certainty to Jasper. He seemed to reflect for a while, then took a deep breath, regarding me with those girlish, dark-lashed eyes of his.

"Edward, do you trust me?" he asked.

"Of course I do."

"Then let me try something. Tell me to stop any time you're uncomfortable," he murmured, and he reached over with one hand, across the narrow space between us with to touch me between the legs. The feel of his hand on my member was initially confronting, and I gasped at him. He didn't move, he just had his fingers cupped lightly over my penis, which lay limp and slack, curving towards the top of my right thigh. I was frozen. That part of me had never had a hand on it that wasn't my own or female.

"I don't want to upset you, and I'll do you no harm," he whispered. "You can stop me with a word."

Then he stroked the underside of my shaft very gently with his thumb. Base to tip and back, slowly, backwards and forwards. My manhood was soft and unresponsive, but he was in no hurry. Truth to tell, I was stunned. I had the urge to pick him up and throw him overboard for doing such a thing to me, and he was of so slight a build I could have done it, but I lay transfixed as my cock responded. It had been a while since I'd known the sensation of friction there and a familiar, yet at the same time new, feeling of sensual excitement overtook me. If I shut my eyes tight, I could imagine a girl had her elegant hand on me, though if I looked down I could see that the palm was too square, the fingers too long, and the wrist too broad. A _man_ was touching me there, and I fought against the simultaneous notions that it was wicked, but that my cock was swelling and almost leaping into that hand, and that it stroked me with more surety and firmness than a woman had ever shown.

"I'll stop whenever you say so," his voice promised me again, and I could have shouted at him to do exactly that. I could have punched him. I could have shoved him off me and called him all the filthy names under the sun that people call the men who take their enjoyment from other men, but I didn't. I looked into his jade eyes with their inky lashes, and my fevered gaze drifted over his smooth, though now flushed skin, and down to his full lips, and then beyond, to where he was working me expertly. This was surely wrong - but I had been so long without being touched intimately and now that he'd started I felt desperate for completion. Was this voyage, and the backbreaking work, and the company of oafs, and the hardship making me into something I was not?

I didn't know myself. I grunted and found I was pushing my hips up, wanting him to be rougher and harder. Normally I would look into a girl's eyes when she was doing this to me, but I couldn't look into Jasper's. Instead my gaze fell, and there in his trousers was a bulge pushing out the fabric. It seemed to point straight at me. Startled, my gaze flashed to his face.

"Ignore it. I don't expect anything from you," he said, his breath irregular. "Close your eyes."

I did as he instructed, unwilling to have him stop now, though I was wracked with hesitancy and guilt over what I was permitting. At one stage his hand paused, and I growled like a wolf to express my displeasure, but then nearly leapt out of my skin to feel that he was undoing my belt and reaching inside my clothes. He stood next to me as I lay, and recommenced his actions, while his other hand cupped me lower down. I lost all dignity and whimpered like an animal when he squeezed there with a rhythmic but soft insistence. It wasn't much longer before I attained my release, gritting my teeth so not to cry out as my ejaculate spurted into his fingers.

While I recovered my breath I lay back quietly in my hammock, listening to the sound of his breathing slowing as well. I didn't know what to say, and didn't dare glance sideways to meet his eye. Remembering that he had clearly been in a state of high arousal I even started to feel angry. How dare he - a _queer_ - force his attentions on me in such a manner? He couldn't possibility have garnered any impression at any stage that what he done to me would be welcome. I felt besmirched at his affrontery, and offended that he had, upon receiving confirmation that I trusted him, abused that trust. A small part of my brain niggled at me that Jasper had surely derived no satisfaction from the incident, because I had not touched him as he had touched me, and he had done nothing himself to address the situation of his own obvious excitement. Another thought niggled at me that he had assured me several times that he would desist as soon as I asked him to do so. I had been so long without a woman that I hadn't asked him to desist.

When a moment later he whispered my name in a questioning tone, I rolled over to lie facing away from him, determined to seek the refuge of sleep. But sleep did not come.

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	19. Chapter 19 Buccaneers 4

**Buccaneers**

**Part 4**

The next night I stayed in the mess long after finishing my meal, and watched dully as half a dozen of the crew played cards. Eventually I pushed my way between two of them and asked to be dealt in. There was precious little any of us could gamble with as no-one had any money, only the pledge of money once we arrived at our destination and commenced our escapades, but everyone gambled their wages nonetheless. Thanks to my inglorious history, I'd had plenty of experience with card games and had picked up a trick or two. I was also far cleverer than any of these buffoons. I began to win, and began to accumulate a pile of promissary chits in front of me. There was an option to exchange them for rum, and this I did. I ended the night in a sorry state, not that I knew anything about it. In the morning I lay sprawled across the floor, a school of blacksmiths in my head hammering horseshoes, with each resounding hammer blow compounding my nausea, and adding to the head-splitting pain affecting me.

Staggering above decks I barely made it to the side before throwing up, and then collapsing where I stood.

"Pretteh, you sweet-cheeked babe-in-arms, you're not fit to be in the company of adults if you can't hold your drink," Garrett growled, pulling my head up by my hair and grimacing into my face. "Go back below and sleep it off. If this happens again, you'll still be up the ropes, whether you've the wit and the strength to hold on or not. And be reminded - our good Captain Eleazar's fair fond of ordering whippings, and your sweetheart Demetri's fair fond of delivering them. Now, out of my sight, boy."

Each pitch of the ship threatened to upend the scant contents of my belly and the journey back down below decks seemed the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. Loathe to go anywhere near my own hammock, I returned to the mess, and slept again on the floor, after securing for myself a bowl from the galley. During the day I had need of it, as my stomach turned itself inside out. I was barely aware of my surroundings, and I barely cared.

That night, still not recovered, but having had enough of lying on a hard floor regurgitating bile, I took myself up to the bridge where Jim was on watch.

"Ye're a fool but ye're a young fool. There may be hope for ye yet," he said not unkindly, shaking his head at me.

"How much longer is this cursed voyage?" I croaked.

"Three months I'd say," he declared, and I nearly fell over, having to grab the wheel to support myself. It spun in my hand.

"Steady there, Pretteh!" Jim exclaimed. "Ye'll have us off course, and we'll wind up in some godless land of dragons and cannibals! It's not three months at all, more like a couple of weeks. Then yer life at sea'll really begin. This lovely ship of ours, The Swan - ye'll see her fly, lad. We'll chase those swarthy Spanish rascals, we'll board their buckets and we'll lighten their loads. They've stolen from us, taking our gold to make their doubloons - and we'll get it back. Ye'll be grabbing sackfuls of the stuff, Pretteh, and if one or two coins should fall into yer boot - that'd not be yer fault now, would it? Once yer back on The Swan with all the loot she'll be none the slower, because our beauteous Swan has a heart, lad. She'll bear us every time on gilded wings to safe harbor - doubt it not. Ye'll get yer wages, and all the ackee and saltfish ye can eat. And lad, back on solid ground, I advise that ye find a secure spot and bury there for yerself a little stash, but keep it dark. Injuries happen, fightin' with the pirates, and if yer not fit to sail, ye'll be stuck ashore. Ye may find a little insurance is a good thing."

Battles and adventure on the waves - he was describing the very things that had lured me to board this vessel in the first instance. That, and the thought of freedom. However I'd learned quickly that there was no freedom aboard a ship, and I no longer fancied engaging in face-to-face combat. What were the Spaniards to me? I cared not for their treasure. Having experienced the hazardous brawl with Demitri, swinging from lines and both of us in danger of falling to a watery grave, onboard fighting was not in the least inviting a prospect either. My thoughts sideswerved to Jasper's declaration that he'd leave the ship come landfall. Reluctant though I was to think of Jasper at all, I found myself of the conviction that after this voyage I too wanted earth beneath my feet.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked Jim, to distract myself.

"Longer than ye've been alive, Pretteh. I was a fatherless brat, my mother bein' a prostitute in a dockside brothel. 'e was a sailor, that much I do know. I've 'ad no school learnin' seein' as I stowed away like a little rat when I were a seven year old. I've seen a lot, and I've 'eard more. I can tell ye what the wind says is a-comin', and I can tell where we are at night by a single star. On a clear day I'll predict rain to the very minute. I know if there be a reef beneath us or a trough, and I know from the color of the waves what mood the sea's in. But as for what it's like to be a landlubber - I wouldn't have the foggiest. The sea's my bride, for life, and I'll be buried in 'er."

Oh, to be so confident of my place. In contrast to Jim's surety I felt tossed on the wings of chance and indecision.

"What have you seen then, Jim? Monsters, mermaids?" I questioned further, intrigued in the moment.

"Mermaids - none. I'm sure they don't exist. If I'd ever caught a glimpse of a green fish-tailed girl down there, I might 'ave jumped in and I wouldn't be 'ere now. As for monsters - in all my years I've caught nary sight nor sound of serpents nor beasts beneath the waves lad, but I assure ye I've seen plenty on decks. We've our very own hellish brute aboard, ye'll know well."

At what struck me as a reference to Eleazar, my thoughts returned again to Jasper. With effort, I could avoid him until we landed in Tortuga, or I could square up and face him sooner.

And try as I had to obliterate myself with rum, the fact remained that I had to assume some responsibility for what had happened between him and me. He'd initiated it, certainly, but for my own part? I had closed my eyes and pretended to myself that he was a woman. Hadn't I? If I fled The Swan and everything in her once we arrived in Tortuga, I'd also be fleeing Jasper. I couldn't as easily run from myself.

With what almost amounted to trepidation, I returned to the passageway where my hammock was slung alongside Jasper's. It was very late, or very early, depending on whichever way you chose to look at it, and he was asleep. I gazed for some time upon his countenance in the golden flickers of light cast by the candle I carried. In repose his face was as fine and handsome as it was when animated. I had panicked like a child, unnecessarily, the other night, when really, if I could stand up to the rank and hideous Demetri, this slender lad could do me no harm at all. Settling myself ready for slumber, I wondered at my definition of harm. Demetri could hit me, and could assemble one or two followers to help him. They could hold me down and inflict serious injury. Jasper was gentle and respectful and had caused me no pain. Furthermore, he'd repeatedly assured me that he would desist at my request. So why had I been so much more shaken, so much more disturbed by what Jasper had done? Jasper had been cautious and caring, and above all, Jasper had been_ giving_. And I'd taken. I'd hated both him and myself immediately afterwards, but I'd _taken_.

By staying up late talking to Jim, and by getting up early, I did manage to avoid Jasper for a couple of days. It was a dangerous undertaking to be so sleep-deprived, and I was acting in a cowardly fashion, and those two days were enough to make me disgusted with myself.

The night after that I waited for Jasper, determined to speak with him and apologize.

It was earlier than usual when the Captain's door opened, but Jasper reeled out of there with his hand covering his lips, and he barely managed to make it to the piss bucket before he retched. I couldn't stand to look at what came out of his mouth and I silently handed him a swallow of ale to wash the taste away.

Jasper nodded his thanks.

"I _am_ going to kill him, you know, that odious bastard," I growled. "I'll cut his loathsome appendage off and shove it down his throat so far he'll suffocate on it."

Making no mention of the fact that I'd been missing for two nights, Jasper replied, "No. Murder is a fairly common occurrence at sea from what I've gleaned, given that sailors are cooped up unnaturally, and they all drink too much. I've heard of men killed because of a card game, and their bodies thrown over the side with a cannonball tied to their feet. The deaths aren't even reported to any authorities anywhere. But killing a captain is a crime you can swing for. It's not worth it."

"None here aboard would mourn him. I'd be cheered."

Jasper gave the slightest grin, and his cheek dimpled. "No doubt," he agreed. "But we don't have long to go now. I'm jumping overboard at the first sight of land. I'll be done with all of this."

He swept a hand, to indicate our current situation, while contemplating an uncertain future. But then we all of us were at the mercy of Fortune's whims.

"Jasper - "

"Edward - "

We both began at the same time. Smiling, we both said "No, you first," at the same time, too.

I bowed my head, because I believed myself to be guilty of the greater wrong, and waited for him to speak.

"Edward, I'm sorry. I make no apologies for who or what I am, but I'm sorry for taking advantage of you. Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt or upset you, and you can be assured I won't touch you inappropriately again."

"_I'm_ sorry. I didn't know what to make of what happened and I reacted badly. You trusted me with what must have been a difficult secret to tell, and I was immature about it. But we are one another's only source of decent conversation and humor on this sorry vessel, and I would like to keep it that way. Forgive me?"

He nodded, but we weren't quite able to shake hands. And Jasper was an astute and attuned fellow. The glaring omission in my little speech had been why I'd let him proceed the other night. The explanation I'd already given myself - that is, because there were no women around - was something I was clinging to staunchly. I had in mind that we would put the whole thing behind us and go back to our camaraderie.

And at first, that's what we did.

Downsides there were aplenty to the rough life we were leading, but quietly and late, by candle light, the pair of us managed sometimes to find some cheer in the recounting of tales and anecdotes from our pasts. We managed to find some optimism with regard to our destinies, unmapped and unknowable though they were, and we discovered a mutual love of music. With Eleazar's thunderous and hoglike snores as accompaniment, we would whisper songs in our complementing tenors, Jasper's the melody and mine the descant. Initially I had to quell discomfort that Jasper's voice was slightly deeper, and I realized I was concerned that it reflected upon my manliness. I soon put aside my foolish vanity though, on hearing that even uttered so quietly, our voices were so well suited and matching our phrasings so effortless.

It was a double life. By day the Pretteh, I kept my mouth shut and went about my work with as much dedication as was required, speaking only when spoken to. At night, I was the Edward that only Jasper allowed me to be.

And one night when Jasper spoke about what type of work and what sort of life he might find ashore, I confessed that I wished to desert the ship and stay with him.

"Eleazar is a madman. This rust bucket is stinking and hellbound. Our mission is knavish, the crew are but swine. All that is and has been endurable about this insanity is your friendship," I said.

"Then we are friends, you and I?" he responded. "I value your good regard more than anything."

"You have it," I replied firmly.

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	20. Chapter 20 Buccaneers 5

Sorry this update took so long! Are ye still with me? Characters owned by SM but the story is owned by _someone else_. Not Me.

**Buccaneers**

**Part 5**

Imperceptibly, a change took place in the way I regarded Jasper. I was protective of him, certainly, and angry at the continuous abuse he suffered from Eleazar. I admired his fortitude. I enjoyed his intelligence and wit. In a purely objective way, I could see that he was - how shall I say this? - unspoiled of feature. As a thoroughbred racehorse is clean of limb and elegant in its conformation, so was he. Around anyone but me he was reserved, but when it was just the two of us he was insouciant and charming.

Friends we were.

More time passed and I found myself thinking of him all the day long as I climbed the lines, endlessly checking ropes and sails. What was he doing now? Was he sewing? Was he in the galley, waiting as the cook put together a plate of the best of whatever was left in the depleted stores, to be hand-delivered to the Captain? Was he standing by as Eleazar and Garrett examined charts, wielding compasses and consulting almanacs?

I day-dreamed about pending whole evenings with him, wishing Eleazar would be too drunk to make his vile demands. Reveries also abounded where Jasper and I found ourselves in the exotic world of the Indies, eating strange new foods and discovering new music, both of us carefree and drunk on liberty. These idylls of mine didn't include any touching other than brotherly arms-about-shoulders as we made our way from one bar to the next, debating philosophy and politics, setting the world to rights over fortified wines, or unimaginable new liquors made from fermented fruits unknown outside the Carribbean. Before long, I never envisaged myself without him.

Then one night we were discussing what manner of employment we should take once ensconced in our new habitat.

"Perhaps a clerical position - or something of a mathematical nature?" I suggested. "Book-keeping? Ledger work?"

Jasper snorted emphatically. "You would confine yourself in a stuffy office all day, in formal wear, scratching numbers with the quill, endlessly counting, and deaf and dumb to the wonders around you?"

As ever, he could introduce a point of view I hadn't considered.

"You are right, Jasper. The prospect lacks appeal. But what, pray, did you have in mind?"

"I'll work on a plantation. I'll labor in the sun all the long day, harvesting sugar. Brown as a conker I'll be, slicing the cane and tying it in bundles, strapping them to my back and hefting them, a hundred at a time. Or have you heard of the coconut? A curious food item - its shell is fibrous and tough, but inside the flesh is white and sweet, and in the centre is a nectar such as those that the Gods themselves must imbibe. The coconuts grow in clusters at the top of tall straight trees which you have to climb without shoes, so you can grip with your bare feet while using your hands to collect the fruit. I'll hack them down, then collect them in sacks to take back to the foreman. A hard, and honest day's work is what I want, Edward, and many of them."

"That certainly sounds better than my poorly-thought plan," I nodded. "I would like to be there at your side, cutting and gathering and lifting." But I am of a competitive nature, and vain to boot. I saw myself as being more powerful than my lithe friend.

"I wager I'd carry more than you, though," I added, pride to the fore.

"Why is that?"

"Well, just look at the pair of us! I outweigh you easily. And your muscles are puny, while mine are well-developed and large," I boasted.

"Indeed?" he responded, with a glint in his eye. "A wager you say? Let's have an arm wrestle then, to determine who is the mightier. What will the loser owe the victor?"

"The Caribbean's finest coconut."

"Agreed. Prepare yourself for defeat."

We had a makeshift table which was the top part of a barrel that had been sawn in half, and we sat down opposite one another and rolled up our sleeves. I was grinning and confident, because I am of stouter physique than Jasper, and I must admit, I expected that he would be a little delicate. Perhaps it was hasty of me to pre-judge him, considering I had no valid grounds, but I was sure a lad so youthful of appearance, smooth of skin and slight of build could not be manly.

I was proven wrong within moments when not only was he able to resist the pressure I exerted, he slowly began to overpower me. Climbing all day up ropes as I do, holding my bodyweight suspended dangerously, swinging on one arm while grabbing for frayed ends with the other - how could he be stronger than I am? But I had led a layabout's life, which had only become physically demanding the past few weeks. It appeared that Jasper's slender frame had power I never suspected.

I am not a man to concede easily, though.

"You have somehow enfeebled me, through mysterious and unfair means," I grumble. "This contest was not honestly won."

"A round of throwdown then, to verify who is the champion?" he offered, and I quickly assented. Throwdown was wrestling, where two opponents grapple, and each strives to knock the other to the floor. The victor is the one left standing.

We were of the same height, Jasper and I, but I must have been the heftier by thirty pounds. I would simply be too heavy for him to have an effect on my balance.

Bracing our legs, we reached for one another and each locked our hands around the other's shoulders. Again, he surprised me. I had underestimated him. I assumed myself to have the superior chance, but we were quite evenly matched. As we sought to tip each other over, we brought our legs and feet into play as well. It is permitted to hook a foot behind your adversary's ankle to topple him. This adds a dance-like dimension, and means that participants must be crafty and agile. Starting off as cocky as I had, I soon saw that Jasper had a distinct advantage. I hadn't been challenged to a Throwdown since school, and I have already detailed my activities over the last few years. Girls, women, cards, drinking and opium. Jasper was quicker and more supple than me, and apparently his brain worked somewhat faster. He had me on the boards, flat on my back and grunting, within minutes.

Because we were grasping each other, he crashed down too. He was on top of me, kneeling across my groin and holding my hands pinned above my head for a few moments, grinning in triumph as we both panted. I became aware of something at the same time he did, and my eyes widened as his closed. My member had become erect, and was straining upwards into him.

With a groan, he flung himself off me, and he was gone.

There are few places to go on a ship, and I knew he would avoid the crew's sleeping quarters. He would be above decks, well away from the bridge. It took no time to locate him.

His head was sunk down between his shoulders, and his shock of pale hair was as unruly as always, yet seemed to shine with the moonlight. When I laid my hand on his shoulder he flinched.

"Don't say anything," he said, dully.

"Jasper - " I began.

"No. I already know you don't have tender or loving feelings towards me; I don't need you to tell me that you're embarrassed and ashamed, and you were just having some sort of reaction, or whatever - "

"Jasper - "

"Go away."

Everything had changed - I'm not sure how, and I don't know when, and I certainly didn't know why, but to see the beautiful boy in front of me hurting and upset over me was unbearable. And I wasn't embarrassed and ashamed. Oh my Lord, no. I remembered his hand on me that other night and the way he'd looked - jade eyes dark with desire and tongue between those full lips as his breath came fast and irregular. I thought of how he'd been just now, so solid across and above me, and I wondered if that was how women felt when a man was over them.

I took his chin in my hand and forcibly turned his head towards me. There had never been a parity of strength between me and a woman, and suddenly I was excited that Jasper could push me away easily if he chose to. Seized by caprice and a startling yearning, I brought my mouth to his.

He fought me. I hadn't thought about this at all. I kissed him out of an impulse brought about by discovering that this man, slender and almost feminine in his fineness and sensitivity and gentleness was as physically strong as me, and he was honest and caring and open. He had characteristics I'd looked for in women, but he didn't simper, wasn't coy, wasn't devious. He had told me directly that he wanted me, and he didn't care for money, or position. He was brave. All these things would make for a good friend, and I had thought I could be friends with him. Then he had touched my private parts and I thought I would be sick. But later, barely acknowledging it to myself, I'd longed for the feeling and the contact again, and I'd even longed just to feel his eyes on me.

My kiss was imploring, I knew it. Not sophisticated and arousing, not sure and skilled. I'd kissed many women, but I'd never been in this agitated state with them. I'd only ever had one outcome in mind. Now, I didn't know what outcome I sought. It mattered not a whit. Jasper shoved me away.

"Please," I whispered urgently. There shouldn't be anyone else up and about this hour except for whoever was on watch on the bridge, and we should be well out of earshot. But I still felt the need for discretion.

"Please what?" he whispered back. "I don't know what you're doing, and I don't know what you want. It was clear to me that I disgusted you the other day, even though you didn't stop me when you could have - and now what? Have you gone too long without a woman and grown bored with your own hand? You're prepared to slake your desire with me, though ordinarily you would find such an idea repugnant..."

I reached for his shoulder, and he was shaking with distress.

"It's not like that, Jasper," I murmured.

"I won't let you use me, as that brutish Eleazar uses me," he asserted, and his words hit me like a blow. I could have reeled away in pain.

"I would never, _never_..."

Such was my despair at his statement I couldn't even complete the sentence, yet I knew I had to. "I would never do anything to you against your will, I know I've already hurt you and I'm so deeply sorry for that. You have made me realize something about myself, and it's not a realization I was ready for. I'm not quite happy about it, to be honest, and I'm still adjusting to the shock. But let's go back below for this discussion. We can't talk up here, Jasper."

He nodded wordlessly and followed me, back down to our little hell hole outside Eleazar's door. The sounds of the captain's snoring and grunting and farting assured us he was deep in a stupor, and was unlikely to wake. With him in this state, this was the most secluded place on board, dank and airless as it was. No breeze could gather up our words on its way past, and whisper them to ears that would wish us ill.

And hesitantly, I attempted to explain myself to Jasper. It wasn't a fine speech - eloquent and assured, but a series of mumbling utterances, punctuated with long gaps. The jist of it was that I didn't believe myself to be a man who loved men. I wasn't about to abjure the delights and pleasures of women. Truthfully, I had been faintly repelled by what Jasper had done to me, but as he so rightly pointed out, I hadn't stopped him - I hadn't wanted to. And since then, I'd thought of him constantly and -

This was where I ran out of things to say.

"What are you actually telling me?" Jasper asked, from his hammock.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I only know that I want to see you every day, and I love your smile, and I hate your misery, I want to be with you, and when you get off this accursed tub, in the Windward Isles, I want to come with you."

He considered, and so did I. My awkward and ill-conceived monologue hadn't actually admitted anything - I'd neither said that I wanted him, or needed him, or loved him. Really, I was no more than a fool.

"You have already said that you consider me a friend. This is surely a reiteration of that sentiment," he said finally.

"It's more," I insisted. "I want to kiss you. I wish you would let me."

We hadn't blown out the lantern yet, and his shadowed eyes were fathomless as he heard this last remark. An eternity passed - him expressionless and me breathless.

"So kiss me," he invited finally, and I was out of my hammock in a flash. He sat on the edge of his, and our lips met, for the second time that night. His were plump as a girl's, but I felt harsh bristles around them - a situation at the same time anomalous and wrong, but exciting. He parted his thighs and pulled me between them, wobbling on the swinging hammock and holding my hips to steady himself. Our mouths were wide open and hot straightaway, and as our tongues delved with no shyness and no restraint, we were both soon out of breath.

Jasper was the first to pull away. "Is this just a matter of curiosity for you?" he asked.

Maybe it was. I was thrilled and confused - a toy tossed carelessly between Eros and Tyche, while Aphrodite watched and reserved judgement. I swallowed dumbly and made no response.

"Don't play with me," he said. "Promise me nothing, Edward. I couldn't bear it."

But I was ready to promise him everything. By this point, I couldn't bear not to.

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I'll proofread this later. I just wanted to put it out there so you'd know I haven't given up on this tale!

If you spot any glaring errors in continuity, grammar, spelling etc, let me know.

If you know any good pirate jokes, let me know.

Or go on, leave a review.


	21. Chapter 21 Buccaneers 6

**Buccaneers **

**Part 6**

Sleep came fitfully to me, in snatches of what could only have been half hours, from what the bells told me.

In the morning, I looked over to Jasper's hammock to find him seemingly asleep. So beautiful - the lips that had kissed me and whispered to me in the dark night. I wanted to wake him and kiss him some more, but if I didn't show up above decks for duty, no doubt Garrett would send some malodorous and ill-tempered henchman down to fetch me. Frequently men didn't emerge from their hammocks at the required time, and if they were lucky they earned a bucket of cold brine thrown over them, soaking them through and waking them spluttering and coughing. If they were unlucky it was a flogging. It mattered not what state anyone was in to Garrett. If a man was still drunk by the time he was called to decks, it was simply the worse for him, and if he tumbled over the side in pitching seas, too bad. No-one would throw him a line, and the ship wouldn't turn back.

I'd finished my bowl of what was little better than pigswill in the mess, and made my way through the hatchway onto deck. I was about to commence the dreary and dreaded never-ending task of climbing and checking the ropes, when I became aware Demetri stood behind me. His stench was peculiar to him - rum and rot and the devil-knows-what. His face was pressed no doubt as close to mine as he dared.

"You and the captain's skinny bitch, eh Pretteh?" he sneered.

In shock I spun to face him, trying to keep my face neutral.

"Sharing a kiss, and more, I'll wager. Aye - your secret's out, pansy-boy. You'll be killed if Eleazar knows you've taken a fancy to his favorite little flower. You'd better not be caught even looking at her. He don't want anybody but him spreading her tight backside - "

Seizing Demitri's shirt front, I held my blade to his throat.

"Listen, you piece of filth," I snarled, barely managing to hold down my rage, but not prepared to let him see how much he'd riled me. "I have no interest in anything you've ever said, or are about to say, or could ever say. The very sound of your voice is disgusting. That being so, the next time I hear you so much as clear your throat I will cut your _mouth_ off and feed it to the rats in the bilges. If you understand me, nod. If you're not sure, shake your head and I'll repeat myself. Take care not to speak, though."

Demitri was heftier than me, but I was taller than him, and due to his usual abject drunkenness, and my onboard sobriety, I dare say I was a good deal quicker too. It must have seemed to him that there was good chance I wasn't bluffing, and I'd carry out my threat. Indeed, I was so angry I felt fully capable of attacking and damaging him in just the way I'd described. He nodded, and I released him, knowing that now he had more reason to detest me than ever. I also knew that what he'd said about Eleazar was probably true, as our hated captain was insane and dangerous. Climbing aloft, I reflected that it wasn't only the breeze that had ears to hear and a mouth to speak. It seemed the very planks had seen and heard Jasper and me last night, and from now on we had very good cause to worry. Someone was telling tales, and I had no-one to trust.

Remembering Jasper's kiss was all that sustained me that day, once the familiar ache caused by climbing set in to my back and shoulders. Rigging was tiring, but a lapse of either strength or concentration could mean death. All the jobs aboard were back-breaking or potentially fatal, and many of them both. What madness had I ever been under, that I thought I would be suited to a life at sea?

Returning to my hammock at the end of a long day, I found the canvas wet, and reeking with the acrid stench of urine. I knew I had Demitri to thank for it. I had no option but to sleep on the hard and uncomfortable floor. Though I struggled to stay awake and wait for Jasper, both to tell him of this new development, and just for the pleasure of seeing him, I was so exhausted I was asleep before he appeared.

_In the morning, upon rising I slipped into my sandals and made for the gangway only to feel sudden agonizing pain in the soles of my feet. Looking down, I watched in horrified amazement as trickles of blood appeared. On inspection, both sandals had thin shards of broken glass imbedded into the leather. I lacked a clean shirt to tear up and use for bandages, and was loathe to walk on deck in this state, knowing Garrett was sure to make me scrub whatever bloodstains I left in my wake. There was a small pot of rainwater I collected on wet days and nights that I left hanging for Jasper and I to drink from, so I pulled off the shirt I was wearing and soaked it. It was grimy, and I would be laying myself open to infection, but I scrubbed ineffectually at the fabric before tearing it into strips, and bound my feet. Then I went looking for Demetri._

_"New socks, Pretteh?" he sang out, drawing the attention of everyone around._

_"Yes, and if you like the look of them I'll give them to you as a cravat," I sang back. "I'll even knot it for you, Demetri, good and tight around your fat neck. It will improve your appearance greatly, especially when your face turns blue."_

_"Tough words - tough words," he sneered. "You almost sound like a real man."_

_There was hooting around from his bunch of cronies, all even uglier and more stupid than him. I wasn't about to stand for the ridicule, and it was time I stood up to Demitri in the only way he'd understand. The pain in my feet was causing me real hardship, but there was nothing wrong with my hands. I swung a punch, which landed with an almost bone-crunching thud on the side of his jaw._

_He stared in astonishment, clearly having thought I didn't have it in me, and then collected himself. One hand curled into a fist and he was just about to let fly when Garrett appeared._

_"Demetri!" he roared, and such was his command that Demetri actually stopped._

_"What has happened to Pretteh's feet you sack of shit?" Garrett continued. "Your rum rations are cut for two days, and you're on double duties. Lazy swine. Pretteh's better on the ropes than you ever were, you fat bastard, and now he's all but useless. Pretteh - you're scrubbing. On your knees, ballerina. Get him a brush and a bucket! Are you all as useless as these two fairy queens?"_

_God, Garrett was an unfeeling bastard. A bucket and brush were thrust at me, and though the blood soaking through the makeshift wrappings on my feet was obvious, he showed no lenience. And it seemed there was to be no punishment for Demetri. I hated all of them, I hated every aspect of this life, I thought grimly, and allowed a part of my mind to wander to when I would be free of this floating nightmare - on solid ground, and hopefully with Jasper at my side. _

Suddenly, a pitch of the hull jolted me and I hazily shook my head, surprised to find myself flat out on planking with dark all around. Had Demitri hit me after all, and knocked me out? It took a while to realize that the scenario with the sandals and my bleeding feet had been a dream. It was before first light, I was below decks while all the crew but whoever was on watch were slumbering still, and from above me came the gentle and reassuring sound of Jasper breathing.

We weren't safe though, he and I. We were far from it. I had to wake him and warn him.

Whispering his name, I shook his shoulder lightly.

He must have been lost deeply in a dream himself, as it took him a while to come to me.

"It's me, it's Edward. Jasper - Demetri knows about us," I murmured to him, mindful now of how much care I had to take in anything I said or did.

"Uhhh?" Jasper mumbled, attaining alertness slowly. "Knows about what?"

"_Us_," I repeated.

I could only just make out the gleam from the whites of his eyes as he regarded me.

"What is there to know?" he asked.

What indeed?

"He knows I kissed you," I mumbled.

"And why should that be of any interest to Demetri, or anyone else? It's barely of interest to you," he responded, and he was making me pay for my ambivalence. I deserved it. I'd put my tongue in his mouth only a night ago, and I was more than halfway ready to entrust my heart to his keeping, but I couldn't tell him. He didn't know what I wanted from him, and thought he was just some sort of dalliance for me. I'd told him I couldn't love a man, and that I only wanted to bed women. Truthfully, I hadn't thought of anything physical with him beyond kissing, despite hazy, barely-formed recollections of his hand on me which I pushed away almost as soon as they presented themselves in my brain. My body's reaction to him the previous night had come as a complete surprise to me, and yet it hadn't been unwelcome. In fact, my body was having the same reaction to him right now. An urge to touch him, to explore, to feel and _know_ him came upon me. My hand was still on his shoulder, and I moved it slowly, very, very slowly to his chest, allowing my fingertips to slip inside the neckline of his shirt. His flesh was smooth and warm and firmly muscled. Beneath my questing fingers his heart hammered, reaching the speed I already knew my own heart to be racing at.

"You're wrong," I said, my voice husky, my hand now sliding out of his shirt and down his front, over his belly, towards -

He stopped me.

"What did Demitri say?"

"Eleazar will have me killed if I so much as look at you."

Jasper sighed. "Then don't look at me."

"You don't want me killed?"

"Of course not."

"What _do_ you want?"

"Oh, Edward. What I want is you. Just you - well, you and freedom. Not this ship, not the sea, not the petty cruelty and deprivation and the foulness of the people around us. I don't care where you and I are as long as I have you, and we're not here," he said, no hesitance in his voice.

Light was beginning to creep into the air now and I was able to see him a little. I could see the hope and the dream on his face, and I knew that I shared it.

"Yes, Jasper, yes," I answered. "Let's be far from all this. I want to love you. We'll find somewhere, and we'll work and live and eat and sleep and _love_."

Even in the dimness of first light, his smile was breathtaking.

"Really, Edward? Truly? Is that the way you feel?" he breathed, and at my nod, he pulled me down, and kissed me hungrily. I met him, I matched him, both of us unbearably excited by the newness and strangeness brought about by my discovery and my declaration. I savored the taste of him and the smell, the sweat and staleness despite his efforts to keep clean, and found him delicious anyway. I reveled in the texture of his tongue and teeth, and in the tiny growls he was giving as our mouths moved together. We'd sort things out for ourselves somehow - the two of us together. It might have taken a death-threat for me to recognize my feelings, but I knew them now. His hands were in my hair as I hunched awkwardly over his hammock, trying to get my arms underneath him to hold him, and then simply trying to climb in on top of him. We broke apart laughing as the bells sounded to wake the crew.

"I'd better go. I don't fancy a whipping," I said to him regretfully, although I felt the happiest I'd ever felt in my life. More kisses would be well worth a mere few lashes on my back.

"I don't want you to be whipped. It's only a few more days now. Go - get to work, and come back to me tonight," my beautiful boy answered. "And remember - if you see me about, don't look. We'll not give Demetri or anyone else any cause to spread rumors."

One more snatched kiss, and I departed, floating on air.

Three days to Tortuga. Three days more of hell, before we reached the heaven that beckoned us.

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End file.
